Law Roundtable

At long last, the panel report in China – Auto Parts has come out. Regarding my previous posting on this dispute, click here. For two "preview" postings by Simon, click here and here. For another posting on the interim report by ...

From a new House bill introduced by Congressmen Rangel and Levin (full text here):

SEC. 205. ROLE OF WTO APPELLATE BODY RULINGS IN THE WTO DISPUTE SETTLEMENT SYSTEM.

(a) Findings- Congress finds the following:

(1) The United States and other members of the World Trade Organization made clear when they established ...

So says a magistrate judge.  As you may recall, the defendants invoked the WTO Gambling decision as a defense against their prosecution for various gambling related crimes.  Some excerpts from the ruling:

As an initial matter, the defendants do not have standing to raise alleged violations of ...

John McCain has been going around declaring himself to be a free trader.  ("There's no greater free trader in the Senate than I am," he says).  But Greg Mankiw, in the context of raising some election issues that are important to economists, brings up the uncomfortable issue of ...

In a recent policy report, the Democratic Leadership Committee proposes the following for U.S. trade policy:

3. Revive Trade Enforcement. Many of America’s major trade interests, finally, are already covered by WTO agreements. These include intellectual property rights, subsidies, market access for manufactured goods, and fair treatment for ...

Wing Tat Lee Chair in International Law

The Loyola University Chicago School of Law, a well established urban Jesuit law school is currently seeking candidates to fill its recently vacated chair in international law named in honor of Hong Kong businessman Wing Tat Lee.

This twelve month position will entail an ...

The Economist has an interesting article on reactions to foreign investment in the United States.  It seems that on the one hand, individual U.S. states are making concerted efforts to lure foreign investors.  For example, officials from Alabama fly overseas to convince big manufacturers to set up shop in ...

Light on policy, but heavy on laughs:

The Appellate Body has just issued instructions for registering for the Hormones Sanctions hearings on July 28-29: http://www.wto.org/english/tratop_e/dispu_e/public
_hearing_july08_e.htm

If there are any students (or others) in the Geneva area who want to attend and have a report published on this blog, let me know (you can email me at

In a big victory for transparency, the Appellate Body has decided, in response to the parties' requests, to open its oral hearing in the Hormones Sanctions cases (DS320 and DS321) to public observation.  Here's the EU press release:

EU welcomes first opening of WTO Appellate Body hearing to ...