While the European Union (EU) and its Member States (MSs) are members of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) on their own right and as such have their own SPS Enquiry Points, the EU authority responsible for implementing the notification requirements of the SPS Agreement is centralised in DG...

"The WTO Building" provides a fascinating insight into the artwork and architecture of the Centre William Rappard (CWR), home of the World Trade Organization. The book describes the origins and evolution of the CWR, highlighting the many works of art created and donated to adorn the building...

WTO Ministerial Conferences: Key Outcomes contains all the key outcomes from WTO Ministerial Conferences since the organization was established in 1995. Covering twelve Ministerial Conferences held between 1996 and 2022, the key outcomes include Ministerial Decisions and Declarations as well as...

The evaluation assesses the EAP's rationale, evolution, and implementation during the period since its adoption in 2002. It assesses whether the EAP has fulfilled the objectives that guided its creation, namely, shaping members' and market expectations, providing clearer benchmarks for Board...

The U.S.-China conflict is threatening continued global economic prosperity and this has inspired a variety of predictions and prescriptions on the future global order. This paper proposes a light model of global governance not only to form international agreements across countries but also to...

With the use and complexity of industrial policy rising, along with the need for active policies to address climate, food, health, and other emergencies, IMF staff are often expected to provide policy and technical advice on trade-related industrial policies to national authorities. This note...

The complex web of challenges confronting humanity - climate change, pandemics, economic inequality, and violent conflict - demands a robust global governance system. However, the current architecture, centred on the United Nations, is widely considered inadequate. This document delves into this...

World Trade Organization (WTO) accession is a challenging process typically commanding a heavy price in terms of resources and time expended while also calling for the expense of non-trivial political capital by an acceding country's policymakers. Nevertheless, gaining membership of the world...

This paper studies the impact of the process of accession to the WTO on growth rates in a sample of 150 economies. Unlike GATT-era accessions, WTO accessions involve reforms that extend beyond conventional trade liberalization measures. Using information on the pace of negotiations and requests...

The international trading system is under threat. Many observers have already expressed serious concerns about the impact of Covid, the war in Ukraine, tensions over Taiwan and other natural and man-made disasters and their effects on the international trading system. Some even doubt its...

This Article contributes to the discussion about the development of international trade regulation of state interventionism by situating the tensions that exist about the future design of subsidies and state enterprises treaty regulation in the broader context of current systemic challenges to...

Thirty years after its founding, the WTO is experiencing unprecedented turmoil and uncertainty, as the United States has raised questions relating to its national sovereignty and expressed serious doubts about the effectiveness of multilateralism. Perhaps more importantly, United States...

When an exchange occurs between two or more states, factors like currency, government policies, economy, judicial system, laws, and markets influence trade. The WTO agreements cover goods, services, and intellectual property. They spell out the principles of liberalization and the permitted...

In 2022, the process of gradual destruction of multilateralization gave way to an acute crisis. Multiple challenges, including a continued spread of new strains of coronavirus, disruptions in supply chains, appreciation of prices for food and energy, rising inflation, slowdown of economic growth...

This research delves into the impact of World Trade Organization (WTO) membership on trade dynamics in the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) region, focusing on the potential augmentation or diversion of trade resulting from CIS countries' WTO accession. The study context is grounded in...

Some initiatives in the ongoing debate on improving transparency and notifications as a part of talks on WTO reform seem to have been based on the false belief that compliance with notification requirements could be induced through threat of punitive action. Arguments made during discussions on...

In democratic states, mass surveillance is typically associated with totalitarianism. Surveillance practices more limited in their scope draw criticism for their potential to undermine democratic rights and freedoms and the functioning of representative democracies. Despite this, citizens living...

In brief, the World Trade Organization (WTO) is the only international organization dealing with the global rules of trade. Its main function is to ensure that trade flows as smoothly, predictably and freely as possible.

This report, which was submitted to the UN High-level Political Forum on Sustainable Development in 2023, highlights the role of trade in helping countries recover from the COVID-19 pandemic and meet the United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). It also underlines the WTO's...

In examining the effect of membership in the World Trade Organization (WTO) on the amounts of Aid for Trade (AfT) that accrue to developing countries, Lee et al. (2015) (The World Economy, 38, 2015 and 1462) have found that developing country members of the World Trade Organization (WTO)...

This article proposes current WTO Member States commit to a new, nonvoluntary agreement that conditions WTO membership on compliance with jus cogens norms. It argues that while the World Trade Organization (‘WTO’) system should not be the sole mechanism used to punish a state violating jus...

The dispute settlement system of the World Trade Organization prides itself on its high degree of judicial independence and the impartiality of its adjudicators. Yet compared to other international tribunals, WTO members exert considerable political control over WTO adjudicators. Contestation...

This note argues that the IMF is filling a critical gap by integrating gender issues into it work. It makes the case that (i) closing gender gaps is critical for economies because they lead to underdevelopment, underutilization, and misallocation of productive human resources; and (ii) applying...

This paper investigates the impact of import competition on energy efficiency among firms in China. Using a difference-in-differences approach that exploits industry- and firm-level tariff reductions following China's accession to the WTO, we examine the effects of reduced output tariffs on coal...

China, the EU and the U.S. are the world’s largest traders, and many of the tensions in the trading system arise in the relations among them. Our premise is that reforming WTO is a necessary condition for the organization to be a more salient forum for the three large economies to address...

This study empirically demonstrates that there is indeed a positive relationship between trade and peace, by specifically showing that the physical state of peace and the structural elements of peace contribute to a country’s WTO membership, while WTO accession also contributes to achieving...

Carbon abatement efforts in China are penetrating to sub-national level. Zhejiang province, as the 4th wealthy region in China and important player in global market (e.g., textiles, cloth, petroleum and chemical products), lacks in-depth study of its climate change mitigation efforts, especially...

This paper reviews the trade agreement landscape and argues that the conventional understanding of trade agreements as encapsulated in the WTO Agreements is now outdated. This misperception about trade agreements is not just an institutional insufficiency. Concentration on those agreements has...

Last week, the World Trade Organization (WTO) concluded its 11th Ministerial Conference in Buenos Aires, Argentina, amid divergent expectations and goals. Significant issues remain unresolved, and WTO members continue to differ on how countries should approach WTO commitments in light of varying...

There is interest in impact investing, the idea of deploying capital to obtain both financial and social returns. But private financial returns are only possible if capital markets are not perfectly integrated, so profit opportunities still exist in certain markets. This proposition is put to...