WTO is facing an unprecedented crisis. Multilateralism and international cooperation have crashed, not only because of a virus. Can WTO panelists don the strait jackets designed by the "automatic" dispute settlement system of a non-supranational trade organisation, in order to find a "positive...

Has the well-known fragmentation between Human Rights and Water and Investment Law been exacerbated by the protection offered to foreign investors under Peru's recently signed Regional Trade Agreements and under WTO rules, both enforceable under their specific dispute settlement procedures? This...

Among the responses to the Brexit Referendum result on 23 June 2016 one issue was noticeably absent: the implications from a WTO perspective. Leaders have tried to reassure the world that the UK would be at least as good a WTO Member as during its 43 years under the EU umbrella. Some have argued...

The TTIP leaks - and the WTO rights of all member countries - may have opened a welcome window of opportunity for third countries, blinded as they apparently all are by the prospects of trade liberalisation racing ahead with megaregional steps too big for them to buy in with any hope for...

While the TTIP leaks are not the first (nor the last) leak since the inception of the negotiation in 2013, they revealed for the first time the US negotiating position regarding certain chapters of the TTIP draft agreement. As such, the TTIP leaks provide an unprecedented opportunity not only to...

To say that regionalism is gaining momentum is an understatement. To mourn the lack of progress in multilateral trade rule-making is a commonplace in the discourse of politicians regretting the WTO negotiation standstill, and of “know-it-all” academics. The real problem is the uneven playing...

Is there something really new about "land grab" except its extent? What is wrong with an investment contract allowing the holder to buy a farm and to export wheat to Saudi Arabia, or soybeans and maize as cattle feed to Korea, or to plant and process sugar cane and palm oil into ethanol for...

While most economists criticise the GSP for a number of (good) reasons, all preference donors and receivers profess their commitment to what they consider as a tool for developing countries ‘to secure a share in the growth of world trade'. The political support given by both receivers and...