John Jackson pioneered international trade law, helped to establish the WTO, and taught legions of professors and trade policy officials who continue to promote his goals of a multilateral trading system based on the rule of law, transparency, fairness, and non-discrimination. A great man, he was also a very dear man – humble, quiet, unassuming, kind, and private. In his writings, he had the unique ability to distill very complex issues down to a few, readily comprehensible paragraphs for students and readers.

The Seals Regime at issue in EC–Seals pursued conflicting policy objectives of animal welfare, protection of public morals, Inuit, and the marine environment through regulation of product composition and hunting. The panel's TBT findings are problematic. The panel uses the term ‘related’ PPMs in the definition of technical regulations of content and does not distinguish and sequence the legal tests of TBT Articles 2.1 and 2.2 clearly enough. It fails to analyze properly how the necessity analysis should be performed for a multipurpose policy and reduces the ability of WTO members to defend them. The panel also adopts an unduly empiricist definition of public morals and legitimate objectives. This article argues that the content of public morals and legitimate objectives in Article 2.2 should be informed by moral philosophy. Its analysis suggests that collectively binding regulation of ethical standards can generally not be considered to be about public morals.

In line with current research on the effectiveness of international law and institutions, much of the literature on the effectiveness of the WTO dispute settlement system (DSS) has settled on compliance as its primary effectiveness benchmark. This article challenges this trend. It argues that common models gauging the DSS effectiveness through the narrow lens of compliance disregard many other institutional goals pursued by the system, and the conflicts latent among them. Furthermore, existing models are also static in nature—predicated on problematic assumptions regarding the constant supremacy of the DSS compliance objective—what leads them to overlook important shifts amidst the multiple and conflicting goals of the DSS that take place over time and across disputes. Building on the goal-based approach developed in the social sciences, the article introduces a multidimensional framework for analyzing the DSS effectiveness, using the multiple, conflicting and shifting goals set for the system by WTO Members as key effectiveness benchmarks. The article then turns to closely examine the novel concept of ‘goal-shifting’ – essential for effectiveness assessment – and through interview-based analysis of different categories of WTO disputes shows how the DSS goals change with time and context, as a consequence of the changing modalities in which the system operates.

In its Final Modification for Reviews the US DOC announced on 14 February 2012 that it would cease the use of zeroing in the calculation of anti-dumping (AD) margins in all reviews as of 16 April 2012. However, it did not pertain to targeted dumping. In its Final Rule of 22 April 2014, it codified substantial discretion in calculating AD duties, including the use of zeroing, in targeted dumping. Thus the panel in US‒Shrimp II (Viet Nam) erred in not finding ‘as such’ inconsistency by the US with the AD Agreement, despite this not being a targeted dumping complaint. Given the record of the US in complying with zeroing petitions, it should have incurred the burden of proof, which is not satisfied by these pronouncements. Market structure should be used by panels in ‘as applied’ inconsistency determinations. Viet Nam should have included an Article 3 violation in its complaint.

The national treatment (NT) obligation embodied in Article III:4 of the GATT 1994 has been long marked by legal indeterminacy. Recently, the WTO Appellate Body has shed some fresh light on how the NT obligation should be interpreted in EC–Seal Products. The Appellate Body's report on EC–Seal Products and other recent developments in WTO case law have fundamentally reshaped our collective understanding of the NT obligation. The purpose of this article is to take stock of what we have known about the NT obligation in GATT Article III:4 after EC–Seal Products, as well as identifying some lingering uncertainties. This paper argues that the boundary of the NT obligation in GATT Article III:4 will be largely determined by how the Appellate Body deals with three big issues identified in this article in future disputes.

This compliance proceeding under Article 21.5 of the Dispute Settlement Understanding (DSU) concerned measures taken by the European Union to implement the recommendations and rulings of the Dispute Settlement Body (DSB) in EC–Fasteners (China). In EC–Fasteners (China), the DSB found, inter alia, that a European Communities measure imposing definitive antidumping duties on imports of certain iron or steel fasteners from China was inconsistent with certain aspects of the Anti-Dumping Agreement (ADA). The European Union's measures taken to comply with the recommendations and rulings of the DSB consisted, inter alia, of an anti-dumping review investigation regarding fasteners from China (the Review Investigation) conducted by the Commission of the European Union (the Commission). The conduct of the Commission in the Review Investigation was the focus of this compliance proceeding.

Just as it had in several recent similar disputes, the Panel in China–Autos found several of the challenged issues WTO-inconsistent. We believe virtually all of the deficiencies noted by the Panel could be easily addressed with minor changes to MOFCOM practices. The real significance of this dispute lies in what it tell us about the larger trade policy dance between the US and China. On the one hand, with the series of related WTO disputes the US has demonstrated that China must comply with WTO rules. The more vexing challenge, however, is the apparent tit-for-tat motivation for this and other recent Chinese trade policies, and on this point this dispute does little to change the calculus. The prospective nature of WTO relief makes it almost impossible for the WTO to discourage the type of opportunistic protectionist actions exemplified by this case.

Before and after World War II, trade policy was largely dealt with, and shaped by, the communities of government economists and diplomats. Lawyers were hardly involved or in the lead. John Maynard Keynes and Harry Dexter White coined the Bretton Woods institutions. Clair Wilcox was instrumental in creating the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, and Joseph Viner influential in the early years of the GATT. All were economists. Harry L. Hopkins, the father of New Deal and senior adviser to President Roosevelt, entered social work and government after college. In 1944, he coined the adage, expressing the philosophy of international cooperation, which would influence subsequent generations and legal developments so strongly: ‘Trade conflict breeds non-cooperation, suspicion, bitterness. Nations which are economic enemies are not likely to remain political friends for long.’

I'm told that John Jackson was the world's foremost scholar on the law of international trade policy and institutions. Since all that I know of trade law I learned from John, I can only trust the opinions of others on that. But I know that John had an excellent understanding of, and appreciation for, the economics of international trade. And he put those together in both his writings and his advice to policymakers, through which he had a profound influence on the development of the institutions of trade policy that we enjoy today.

This compliance proceeding under Article 21.5 of the DSU concerned measures taken by China to implement the recommendations and rulings of the Dispute Settlement Body (DSB) in China – GOES. In China – GOES, the DSB found that the imposition by the Ministry of Commerce of the People's Republic of China (MOFCOM) of countervailing and anti-dumping duties on grain-oriented flat-rolled electrical steel (GOES) from the United States violated certain provisions of the Anti-Dumping Agreement and the SCM Agreement. In response, MOFCOM issued a redetermination of the matter, pursuant to which China continued to impose anti-dumping and countervailing duties on imports of GOES from the United States. That redetermination was the focus of this compliance proceeding.

In this paper we claim that, in the WTO Appellate Body (AB)'s ruling in US‒Countervailing Measures (China), the AB decision has not put in question the practice of imposing countervailing duties (CVDs). While the US has formally ‘lost’ the case, a change in the procedures and tests used to motivate the CVD will allow the US to continue using this policy tool on the specified products. From an economic point of view, this is not welcome news since CVDs have the standard distortionary effects of tariffs and could go against environmental goals. From a political-economy point of view, the CVDs in this case appear driven by pressure of domestic manufacturers of clean energy technology and products.

This dispute concerned eight financial, taxation, foreign exchange, and registration measures imposed by Argentina, mostly on services and service suppliers from countries that do not exchange information with Argentina for the purposes of fiscal transparency (non-cooperative countries). In particular, these measures concerned: withholding tax on payments of interest or remuneration (measure 1); presumption of unjustified increase in wealth (measure 2); transaction valuation based on transfer prices (measure 3); payment received rule for the allocation of expenditure (measure 4); requirements relating to reinsurance services (measure 5); requirements for access to the Argentine capital market (measure 6); requirements for the registration of branches (measure 7); and foreign exchange authorization requirement (measure 8).

Following an outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease (FMD) in Argentina in 2001, the United States maintained import prohibitions on certain animals and animal products from Argentina. In this dispute, Argentina challenged two sets of measures: (1) the United States' prohibition on importation of fresh (chilled or frozen) beef from a portion of northern Argentina and on the importation of animals, meat, and other animal products from the Patagonia region as a consequence of the failure to recognize Patagonia as an FMD-free region; and (2) the undue delay of the United States’ application of certain regulatory procedures under which the United States assessed Argentina's requests for re-authorization to import fresh (chilled or frozen) beef from a certain area of northern Argentina and for the recognition of the Patagonia region as FMD-free.

One of the key findings in US-Carbon Steel (India) deals with the appropriate method to determine material injury when imported products are subject to simultaneous anti-dumping and countervailing duty (CVD) investigations. Along with addressing a number of legal issues concerning CVD investigations, the Appellate Body clarified restrictions on cross-cumulation of injury, essentially prohibiting the current US practice, and implicitly raising the burden of proof for parallel claims of dumping and subsidies. This decision is justified on economic grounds, where cumulation imposes a counterfactual scenario against which marginal damages of dumping and subsidies by each country cannot be properly evaluated. However, what the legal rulings by the Appellate Body did not recognize is the economic reality that many like products produced by the firms alleged to have received subsidies were selectively absent from the investigation, which more generally complicates the assessment of injury in dumping and subsidy cases.

John Jackson was one of the giants in trade law, with Robert Hudec (who died some years ago) as his equal, though their abilities and interests nicely complemented each other. They both were read with profit, along with other luminaries such as Michael Trebilcock of Toronto, by economists such as myself. They also inspired modern trade-law stars such as my colleagues Petros Mavroidis, David Leebron at Rice, and Alan Sykes at Stanford.

John H. Jackson was indeed a great scholar in the field of international economic law. My association with John lasted for almost 40 years and he was one of my closest friends. There are many personal memories of him and I will mention only a few of them.

In Poštová banka v. Greece, an ICSID case initiated on the basis of both the Cyprus‒Greece and the Czech Republic‒Greece bilateral investment treaties (the BITs), the tribunal concluded that it lacked jurisdiction over the dispute.

After not applying countervailing duty (CVD) law against non-market economies (NMEs) for two decades, the United States opened a CVD investigation against China in 2006. After extensive litigation, a US appeals court ruled that it was illegal to apply CVD law to NMEs. While that ruling was being appealed, the US Congress passed legislation stipulating that the application of CVD law to NMEs starting in 2006 was legal. China challenged this legislation at the WTO. The dispute resulted in a ruling that left open the possibility that the legislation violated the GATT, as well as a finding that the United States must investigate its application of countervailing and antidumping duties against China. This dispute has implications for a number of current WTO debates including: whether Appellate Body rulings create a binding precedent, whether the Appellate Body should have authority to remand cases, and what information should be required in panel requests.