In order to ensure transparency and to keep abreast of trade policies in support of sustainability, the WTO Committee on Trade and Environment (CTE) mandated the WTO Secretariat to compile and collate all environment-related measures notified to WTO. The database also includes...

The paper discusses the experience to date with the implementation and application of the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS), some ten years after its entry into force. One striking observation is the smooth functioning of the Agreement, which has created far less tensions and...

Non-transparency is a term given in this paper to a set of government policies that increase the risk and uncertainty faced by economic actors foreign investors. This increase in risk and uncertainty stems from the presence of bribery and corruption, unstable economic policies, weak and poorly...

Much has been recently written about the Multilateral Agreement on Investment (MAI) that has been negotiated by OECD countries. Perhaps even more has been said by the critics of those who would like to see an agreement of this kind extended among other countries. There has indeed been a great...

In the last ten years, there has been a sea change in trade and related policies in emerging markets. This results from autonomous reforms undertaken in conjunction with macroeconomic stabilization programmes. Many non-tariff measures have been eliminated and tariffs, now the principal trade...

Discussions about international capital movements raise extremely important and controversial questions. Why should countries open up their capital accounts, especially considering that unrestricted international capital movement is a relatively new phenomenon? For example, many OECD countries...

Management of capital inflows has unexpectedly become a major challenge in transition economies. These countries were expected to have an insatiable demand for foreign capital, and an excess demand for capital inflows was, therefore, predicted by most observers. Foreign investors are also known...