There’s been concern expressed in some quarters about whether the TPP Agreement will limit the ability of governments to take public safety measures, in particular, to require disclosure of encryption information for national security reasons. The discussion has been focused on provisions on Chapter 8 of the TPPA covering Technical Barriers to Trade. Some are… Read More »
A note – many years ago I was head of the Treaty Law Section in the old Department of External Affairs. What follows deals with the kinds of issues I covered on a daily basis, coming back into prominence so many years later. Signing the Agreement – What Does That Do? There’s been a fair… Read More »
The release of the TPP text has spawned a vast cyber-literature, as law firms and consultants compete to provide the hottest insights on what’s really in the agreement and its many hidden traps. There are many. This note doesn’t try to do that. Rather, it looks at the structure of the agreement to shed some… Read More »
THE TPP – DRAMA IN FIVE ACTS [A long Way Before the Final Curtain] Paper presented by me at the Canada-US Law Institute Colloquium, Washington, DC, 29 October 2015 The successful conclusion of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) negotiations on October 5, 2015, represented a signal achievement in international trade diplomacy, all the more significant in… Read More »
Here is the link to my op-ed piece in the Financial Post, 8 October 2015, explaining what the implications are if Canada was to reject the TPP Agreement. We would retain all our MFN rights under the WTO Agreement and all the advantages under the NAFTA – but we would lose access to the better… Read More »
Here is an op-ed of mine published in the Globe & Mail, on line on 5 October 2015 and in the 6 October print version. You can also see it here. http://bit.ly/1MbGaqt Lawrence Herman is a principal at Herman and Associates. He practises international trade law and is a senior fellow of the C.D. Howe Institute… Read More »
The July 2015 agreement between Iran and the so-called P5+1 group (the 5 permanent members of the UN Security Council plus Germany) is a complex deal that provides that once Iran ends its nuclear-weapons program, western sanctions against that country- though not all – will be lifted. Clients have asked about the effect of this… Read More »
The trade dispute between Canada and the US over American country of origin labelling requirements (referred to everywhere as “COOL”) is entering its eighth year. It presents a history of delay, frustration and prevarication that, sad to say, tarnishes the utility of the WTO dispute settlement system. Canada took the matter to the WTO back… Read More »