We study the relationship between participation in free trade agreements (FTAs) and the sustainability of democracy. Our model shows that FTAs can critically reduce the incentive of authoritarian groups to seek power by destroying protectionist rents, thus making democracies last longer. This...

In making RTAs, WTO members need to justify its legal problem of MFN violation. Although the Enabling Clause provides important flexibility for the justification, RTAs concluded only among WTO member developing countries may claim this flexibility under the clause. As a consequence, any WTO...

In this paper we discuss the relationship between labour market regulation and regional trade agreements from both a legal and an economic angle. We examine empirically whether regional trade liberalisation is associated with deterioration (“race to the bottom”) of domestic labour standards...

Have regional trade agreements (RTAs) improved market access conditions for developing countries? Using disaggregated panel data for a sample of 45 developing country exporters, 60 export destinations, and the period between 1991 and 2015, it is shown that this question can generally be answered...

International law, political science and economics scholars are all concerned with analyzing the performance of the WTO as an organization. In this paper we focus on the objectives that these different disciplines attribute to the WTO and how performance is assessed against these objectives. The...

The Marrakesh Agreement establishing the WTO recognizes the need for positive efforts designed to ensure that developing countries and especially the least developed among them secure a share in the growth in international trade commensurate with the needs of their economic development.This...

This note attempts to map the relevance of the emerging global law advocacy for the WTO. In this regard, it understands global law as an attempt to describe a growing decrease of the regulatory State and an ensuing increase of private rule-making. Global law intends to generate new thinking...