The threat of Mr. Trump ending the NAFTA negotiations, including the possibility of him sending a notice of US withdrawal from the treaty itself, prompts a brief but interesting review of US-Canada trade relations over the last 150 years. In may come as a surprise to learn that the US has only terminated one trade… Read More »
The investor-State dispute settlement (ISDS) part of the CETA is the focus of Wallonia’s objections to the deal. We can actually solve that roadblock. ISDS was never a sine qua non for Canada. We replicated the NAFTA model (making some later improvements) without any real thought or analysis of whether the Canadian investment community saw ISDS as… Read More »
There was a most unfortunate development in October 2016 preventing the European side from approving the Canada-EU trade agreement, formally known as the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA). On 24 October, tiny Wallonia refused to allow Belgium to agree to the CETA, resulting in a cancellation of the planned treaty signature the same week… Read More »
CETA Held Hostage On Brexit again, what’s clear is that even with a new U.K. government in place, things are still unclear. There’s no roadmap on how all of the issues surrounding the UK leave scenario will be sorted out. In the meantime, the Canada-EU Comprehensive Trade and Economic Agreement (CETA) is held hostage to… Read More »
With the unthinkable – being increasingly discussed – of Britain withdrawing from the EU, questions are asked as to what this means for Canada. What are the implications for the Canada UK trade? And how does it affect the Canada-EU trade agreement? The answer is simple. Brexit will mean a lot of uncertainty on the trade… Read More »
There are over 2,500 bilateral investment treaties that incorporate investor-State dispute settlement (ISDS) mechanisms. These allow foreign investors to bring binding arbitration against host-States for allegedly unfair or arbitrary actions (laws or other measures) affecting the value of their investments. There’s growing concern among informed persons over this entrenched model, as I’ve commented on before.… Read More »
Op-Ed published in The Globe and Mail on January 28, 2015 Lawrence L. Herman, principal at Herman and Associates, practises international trade law and is a senior fellow at the C.D. Howe Institute in Toronto. It’s happening again. In the early 1980s, Canadians witnessed the sorry spectacle of provinces roaming around Westminster, cap in hand, lobbying… Read More »
There was flurry of media excitement last week over the leak in Germany (on August 14th) of an unofficial and incomplete version of the Canada-EU economic and trade agreement (CETA). But not much real drama. In fact, public and business reactions in Canada have been quite tame. Leak Was Expected As the final drafting by… Read More »