Given the current state of multilateral trade negotiations, it appears that preferential trade agreements (PTAs) will serve as the main vehicle for increased liberalization in the short term. The question arises, whether the proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) should and could include...

Most of the book deals with very traditional and somewhat overlapping topics on the EU’s external relations. However straightforward the overall diagnosis in the book is, sepulchral silence remains in relation to the prognosis of the EU’s external relations. For example, in his conclusions,...

On 1 July 2011 the Free Trade Agreement between the European Union and the Republic of Korea will become effective. The pact dedicates Chapter 11 to competition and requires the contract parties to undertake to apply their respective competition laws so as to prevent the benefits of the trade...

The Basel Convention is inarguably a noble effort to combat the grave threat to human and environmental health posed by hazardous wastes, but it has failed in at least one of its fundamental objectives: to minimize the movement of hazardous waste across international borders. Is the framework of...

This article analyzes European Union-China trade relations in the context of the current negotiations for a new comprehensive framework agreement between the European Union (EU) and the People’s Republic of China. China is a strong economic power with increasingly sophisticated production in...

Slowly but steadily Syria is emerging from several decades of economic seclusion. Syria currently finds itself in a period of cautious albeit unprecedented engagement with the global economy. These efforts are personified in terms of greater engagement within the region, manifested by its...

As the Congress of the Federated States of Micronesia (FSM) prepares to debate a draft trade policy (the first in the young nation’s history) in the next few months, this is as good a time as any to review the broader economic development context in which this policy was framed and to reviews...

This empirical research studies the influence of bilateralism on the evolution of positions within the WTO negotiations, taking as case study the negotiations relating to geographical indications. Contrary to the traditional approach – which relies on the systemic opposition between...

China’s currency policy is one of the most hotly debated subjects in recent international monetary history. This chapter sets out the current legal framework at the International Monetary Fund (“IMF” or “Fund”) governing its members’ exchange rate policies, and the global system of...