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...

At the 9th Ministerial Conference of the WTO in Bali it was agreed to develop a work program to conclude the long-running Doha round. This report argues that any work program should recognize that goods and services are increasingly produced in international supply chains. Many of the policies...

Canada-Renewable Energy presented the WTO Panel and Appellate Body (AB) with a novel issue: at the heart of the dispute was a measure adopted by the province of Ontario whereby producers of renewable energy would be paid a premium relative to conventional power producers. Some WTO Members...

Since its birth, the Internet has usually been considered as a threat to the traditional conception of sovereignty as power of a state to regulate the interactions taking place within its territory. The extraterritorial nature of the Internet has definitely contributed to the globalization of...

The Education affair in Egypt is a Janus-faced case considered both as ‘local’ and ‘global’. There are local factors specific to this country - the Islamization of the Egyptian society’s moeurs - as well as elements of global and international nature, that insert the Egyptian education...

A crisis of governability has engulfed the world's industrialized democracies. It is not coincidental that the United States, Europe, and Japan are simultaneously experiencing political breakdown. Rather, globalization is a common culprit. Across the West's open societies, globalization is...

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...