diff --git a/cccli/command/list.py b/cccli/command/list.py
index ea5ff37f8fd89c318942f4ad7c5e1fff768d276d..9c518551621d4381690656b5b514a66e9b8ee899 100644
--- a/cccli/command/list.py
+++ b/cccli/command/list.py
@@ -54,7 +54,7 @@ class Command_list(TqlCommand):
                 line += "%s%s:%s%s "%(self.tdtc(t),
                                      t,
                                      self.tdc(t),
-                                     self.tdr(t, o.get(t, "")).ljust(tags[t]))
+                                     self.tdr(t, o.get(t, u"")).ljust(tags[t]))
             self.printer.out("%s%s"%(line, color["reset"]))
 
     def list_table(self, objs):
diff --git a/cccli/tagdisplay.py b/cccli/tagdisplay.py
index b45f89fcd87a4ead945db6cc0dd533377b481995..621385c16ab83c58d6ce457bd04561e00d5ca6ae 100644
--- a/cccli/tagdisplay.py
+++ b/cccli/tagdisplay.py
@@ -86,7 +86,7 @@ class TagDisplay(object):
         # check general options
         if bool(self.option.get("quotespace", False)):
             if re.search("\s", tagvalue) is not None:
-                tagvalue = "'%s'"%re.sub("'", "\'", tagvalue)
+                tagvalue = u"'%s'"%re.sub("'", "\'", tagvalue)
         # build list of matching pattern with tagname
         l = [ x for x in self.tagtype if fnmatch.fnmatch(tagname, x) ]
         if len(l) > 0: