I propose a framework within which to interpret and evaluate the major reforms introduced to the GATT system in its transition to the WTO. In particular, I examine the WTO Agreement on Safeguards that has replaced the GATT escape clause (Article XIX), and the Dispute Settlement Process (DSP)...

Incomplete information on the degree to which governments internalize the long-run interests of the state is an essential element of information asymmetry in international relations. A reputational model with such incomplete information captures two observed facts: i. costly activities, among...

The United States of America and the People's Republic of China are engaged in a dispute about intellectual property protection and theft. Both states have imposed retaliatory tariffs on one another's exports. This paper considers how members of the World Trade Organization might collectively...

We develop a model in which it is uncertainty about the future domestic policy environment that both makes international cooperation attractive and induces the possibility of a nation reneging on such an international agreement. We show, in a fairly general setting in which the likelihood of...

In an interconnected world, economic and political interests inevitably reach beyond national borders. Since policy choices generate external economic and political costs, foreign state and non-state actors have an interest in inflencing policy actions in other sovereign countries to their...

Economic sanctions are punishment for bad behaviour and, like a parent punishing a child, they are usually imposed by a bigger more powerful country and they are intended to coerce the child in to stopping their bad behaviour. The motivations to using economic sanctions are very broad, so in...

What are the potential benefits and costs of issue linkage in international cooperation? How can we interpret the patterns of issue linkage (or lack thereof) that we observe in the real world? I address these questions through a unifying framework that distinguishes between three types of...

This paper argues that the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland's exit from the European Union or “Brexit” could be used to reorient economic and political relations, in Europe, for the better. It argues that the risk surrounding events, like Brexit, is the result of failed...

What is a “worker-centered” trade policy? The Biden administration claims that it means protecting all workers—foreign and American—from exploitative working conditions in trade sectors. The administration’s vigorous enforcement of international labor rights suggests a significant...

What is the strategic role of membership in an intergovernmental group with unanimity requirements if the group negotiates with an external player in a setting with incomplete information? Being in such a group has a strategic effect compared to negotiating as a stand-alone player and reduces...