Monday, July 21, 2014

Announcements

Although this blog has gone pretty quiet over the last few months (an understatement, I know), I've been keeping busy with plenty of (non-toddler-related) stuff, including--

This Thursday, July 24, I'll be speaking at the Heritage Foundation at an event on "Energy Exports and Free Trade."  The lineup for the event is (if I do say so myself) pretty stellar, and the subject matter couldn't be more timely.  Here's the description:
Expanding domestic energy production over the past few years has provided a welcome boost to the American economy. The federal government, however, has constrained the economic benefits by significantly limiting companies’ ability to trade energy freely around the world. Join as Congressman Cory Gardner (R-CO) leads a discussion in how open energy markets will create more opportunities for Americans, promote economic prosperity at home and abroad. 
The speakers include me, Rep. Gardner, Jamie Webster (Senior Director, Global Oil Markets, IHS), Ross Eisenberg (Vice President, Energy and Resources Policy, National Association of Manufacturers), and Heritage's Nick Loris.  You can register for the event, or watch it livestream online, here.  Hope you can join us.

This Fall, I'll be a Senior Visiting Lecturer at Duke Law School teaching a course on International Trade Law.  Unlike last semester's political science course, the syllabus for this class isn't really something worth viewing online (it's a lot of textbook stuff).  But here's the course description:
International trade and the World Trade Organization attract a lot of attention and debate. Why do almost all economists say that liberalizing trade flows is a good thing? Why do politicians – even ones who purportedly support free markets – often rail against import competition and “unfair trade”? How does trade liberalization interact with other public policy choices such as protecting the environment or promoting the economic development of poor countries? In this course, we will examine why the WTO exists, how it developed from the GATT and how it fits in the international economic order (Part I). The course will offer you an in-depth, practical knowledge of substantive WTO law drawing heavily on case law. It will address the basic principles of trade in goods and trade in services, as well as some of the more specialized WTO agreements on, for example on trade remedies (subsidies, anti-dumping and safeguards). From a more procedural side, the course will pay close attention to the unique WTO mechanism for the solution of global trade disputes, with special reference again to recent and ongoing cases (Part II). It will conclude by examining U.S. trade law – particularly the widely-used trade remedies laws – and assessing not only the practice of international trade law in the United States, but also whether these laws actually achieve their supposed policy objectives (Part III). Although this course will necessarily address key principles and theories undergirding the international trade law system, one of its driving themes will be the actual practice of this discipline in the United States and at the WTO. The course will be graded based on class participation and an open-book final exam.
Registration is open now, so if you know any Duke law students, please send them my way.

Finally, I've still been writing on non-trade policy stuff over at The Federalist.  Hope you'll scan it, as well as all the other good content over there, when you get a chance.

(Oh, and as for that toddler, she's just awesome.)

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