The Agreement on Trade Facilitation (TFA) embodies the first set of new multilateral rules to have been negotiated under auspices of the WTO, part of a small package of decisions centering on matters of interest to developing countries that was “harvested” from the broader Doha round. This...

This paper reviews several key implications of international investment and global supply chain fragmentation for the multilateral trading system. Based on existing economic research, I identify a two-fold challenge for policy makers: first, to leverage the trade-liberalizing potential of global...

In the first dispute on renewable energy to come to WTO dispute settlement, the domestic content requirement of Ontario’s feed-in tariff was challenged as a discriminatory investment-related measure and as a prohibited import substitution subsidy. The panel and Appellate Body agreed that...

If WTO members wish to launch a new round to follow Doha, setting the agenda will require a complex negotiation as in the past, however Doha ends. To reduce the serious information problems they face and prepare the way, advocates should commission an independent research team to produce a...

If WTO members wish to launch a new round to follow Doha, setting the agenda will require a complex negotiation as in the past, however Doha ends. To reduce the serious information problems they face and prepare the way, advocates should commission an independent research team to produce a...

The WTO is regarded as one of the few successes of (proto-) constitutionalism in response to globalization. However, the rapid deepening of economic integration that has occurred in recent decades has meant that the relevant civil society is less obviously well-represented by nation-state...

The commonplace tendency is to blame the difficulties of the Doha Round of multilateral trade negotiations on the World Trade Organization (WTO) itself. In contrast, I suggest in the first part of this paper that exogenous structural factors, especially changing commodity prices and trade flows,...

Plurilateral agreements in the WTO context allow sub-sets of countries to agree to commitments in specific policy areas that only apply to signatories, and thus allow for 'variable geometry' in the WTO. Plurilateral agreements share a number of features with preferential trade agreements (PTAs)...

The disagreements between the old and new trade powers in the WTO on market access issues that have deadlocked the Doha Round are in part a reflection of the “special and differential treatment” that developing countries have historically pursued in the WTO. A re-thinking of that approach is...

This paper discusses the challenges that confront the WTO, inspired by the recent appointment of a new Director-General for the organization and various views that have been expressed by knowledgeable observers as to how these challenges should be addressed. The paper focuses in particular on...