Mona Paulsen
@monapaulsen
Assistant Professor in International Economic Law, LSE Law School. Specialisation in international trade law and economic security, in addition to research and teaching interests in international investment law, international development, and IPE.
Jess' report here is instructive for conceptualising the issues in Canada too, and the potential legal issues that may arise should the Trump administration assert that Canadian forestry management restricted US commerce. Without an international standard, can the US determine the metric?
Turkey argued that the "preferential treatment of its RTA partners" was justified pursuant to GATT Article XXIV. Here are some interesting bits to that end. We don't have much case law on XXIV, and here we have a panel examining XXIV as a defence to MFN violations (Relevant!!)
The panel struggled to accept that imported EVs/Hybrids are problematic when they are "the very same products that Türkiye wants its consumers to buy to reduce CO2 emissions". The "risk" they present is that they compete with domestic products.
What about Turkey's assertion that domestic EV manufacturers are key in developing the charging infrastructure? But... note the challenge of blending these objectives.
After examining facts, the panel found Turkey's assertion that the absence of charging infrastructure "remains a major barrier to EV adoption in Türkiye" was unfounded. Turkey hasn't shown that there was a risk of a future infrastructure bottleneck.
To justify restrictions, Turkey had to demonstrate the existence of a risk in the first step of the analysis under GATT Article XX(b). Turkey argued that excessive imports of EVs/hybrids create the risk of higher CO2/GHG emissions. Where climate meets protectionism? Not exactly.
Canada and Brazil could likewise initiate a WTO situation complaint concerning a collective concern with the volatility and incalculable costs to global supply lately.
Good morning! Happy Canada Day! US-Canada markets remain highly interdependent, making relations a bit love/hate over the years. I don't think Canadians take issue with the updates, but tariffs and discriminatory demands have stirred up a lot of ill will. www.theglobeandmail.com/world/us-pol...
Ya'll, look I cannot predict the future, and certainly more volatile and extraordinary trade actions have been taken in the past few years...but I implore you to realise that whatever the President says, the Detroit-Windsor corridor says otherwise. Not to mention oil imports... and its alot.
In one sentence, we now know that India will likely have a chance to revisit its defences in the India-Certain Measures Relating to Solar Cells & Solar Modules dispute, concerning India's need to develop domestic resilience measures to improve India's domestic capacity for solar cells and modules.
But here's the problem -- when you determine that all matters of economics are matters of security and you tariff furniture, I don't see how asking the public about "non-sensitive" goods will work. May end up with a freefall of US businesses demanding special protections...upstream and downstream.
A US-China Deal? Ok, when I see it on paper substack.com/@monapaulsen...
As learned colleagues have noted, any US-China agreement could resemble past ones, with a focus on purchases. But the interesting bit is the Trump executive welcoming Chinese investment. One could see a version of the Japanese mechanism - though I cannot imagine China bypassing security protocols.
Traditionally, conservatives are originalists, or strongly lean towards it, yet the Trump government then offers quite evolutive interpretations of law to justify tariffs. For example, this argument in the CIT s.122 case that "balance of payments deficits" is "malleable".
The work builds on archival research from Ambassador Julio Lacarte’s proposals from the 1950s and discussions by Brazil into the 1960s, as well as on economic and political economy literature on collective action.
However, US Ambassador Barloon posted his statement (h/t @simonlester.com) ustr.gov/sites/defaul...
As any gardener knows, weeding requires action at the root -- likewise, Korea urged greater collective action to tackle “root causes.” We do not have further information from the meeting’s minutes at this time.
Korea's statement is carefully written. But its messaging is clear: short-term, unilateral actions have failed and will continue to fail to solve "structural challenges, including overcapacity and trade-distorting subsidies." Korea believes that responses should “not rely primarily on tariffs.”
As I will present soon, these economic security quadrants (ESQs) require protocols grounded in past GATT/WTO practice.
Canada is launching a new nuclear strategy. Some might call it economic security... www.canada.ca/en/natural-r...