The recent surge in competition between state and private firms in global markets calls for a reflection on how to minimise any potentially distortionary effects on international trade and investment created by state enterprises while at the same time restraining any undue protectionist policy...

Governments have been examining the potential role of joint government interpretations of investment treaties at OECD-hosted intergovernmental investment roundtables. Now well-established in the model BITs and treaty practice of the NAFTA governments, express provisions for such joint...

Many governments have expressed concerns about the uncertainty linked to the perceived inconsistency of treaty interpretation in Investor-State dispute settlement (ISDS). An OECD-hosted intergovernmental investment roundtable has been considering a range of tools through which governments can...

State enterprises (SEs) have been increasingly competing with private firms in international markets, in terms of both cross-border trade and FDI. Given both the potentially positive contribution internationally trading and investing SEs can make, as well as the concerns raised about their...

This paper explores the definition, measurement, and policy implications of digital trade, proposing a tentative typology of digital trade that can be used to unpack transactions and analyse the issues. Digitalisation is changing what and how we trade: from digital delivery to greater physical...

There is vigorous debate about reforms to address the balance between investor protection and the right to regulate in the over 3000 existing investment treaties. This paper first notes the growing trend to analyse particular treaty rules rather than treaties as a whole and the importance of...

The fair and equitable treatment (FET) provision has leapt to prominence in the last 15 years as the principal ground of liability at issue in many if not most investment treaty arbitration claims. In debates about the impact of investment treaties on the right to regulate, FET is second only to...

World trade growth was rapid in the two decades prior to the global financial crisis but has halved subsequently. There are both structural and cyclical reasons for the slowdown. A deceleration in the rate of trade liberalisation post 2000 was initially obscured by the ongoing expansion of...

Regulations and enforcement decisions that at first appear to have only a domestic impact can have substantial spillover effects on other nations' economies. Experience has shown time and again that there is no reason to expect that these effects are confined to jurisdictions at the same level...

The authors propose a unified theoretical framework within which to interpret and evaluate the foundational principles of GATT. Working within a general equilibrium trade model, they represent government preferences in a way that is consistent with national income maximization but also allows...