After considering the background to the G20 summit meetings after the recent global economic and financial crisis, this paper aims to identify the trade agenda that represents Asia’s concerns for the global and regional trading system. Asia, in particular East Asia, has played an important...

To become operational, the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) must harmonize Rules of Origin (ROO) across Africa's Preferential Trade Agreements (PTAs) along two dimensions: regime-wide rules and product-specific rules. This paper describes and evaluates these ROO across the major...

African countries are negotiating the African Continental Free Trade Area with the aim to spearhead global value chain (GVC) trade among African countries as a driver for robust economic growth. This paper evaluates the participation of Sub-Saharan African Regional Economic Communities (RECs) in...

Least developing countries (LDC) rely on preferential market access which is mechanically eroded by the tariff reductions by grantor countries to other countries. Effective market access depends on the severity of the Rules of Origin that have to be met to qualify for these preferences. These...

The paper surveys the state of knowledge about the trade-related environmental consequences of a country's development strategy along three channels: (i) direct trade-environment linkages (overexploitation of natural resources and trade-related transport costs);(ii) 'virtual trade' in emissions...

A request for relaxing current Rules of Origin (RoO) under the EU-Jordan FTA have been proposed under a EU/friends of Jordan initiative. This brève reviews RoO requirements under the EU-Jordan FTA and compares them with those under the Jordan-US FTA. It also compares the utilization of...

The Paris Agreement (PA) signed by 175 parties is now a Treaty since a quorum of signatories has been obtained. This Treaty is really the first important step taken to limit temperature increase, as pledges, if sustained and far more ambitious beyond 2030, would drastically limit the projected...