Regional trade agreements (RTAs) have become an indelible feature of the international trading landscape. Most, if not all, RTAs contain provisions that establish procedures for resolving disputes among their signatory members. Yet, the design and functioning of these dispute settlement...

The WTO TBT Agreement obliges governments to use international standards as a basis for regulation, yet leaves a degree of flexibility with respect to the choice of standard, and the manner of its use. This interplay between obligation and flexibility has given rise to tension in various fora of...

Without transparency, trade agreements are just words on paper. Transparency as disclosure allows economic actors and trading partners to see how rules are implanted; transparency in decision-making ensures fairness and peer review. In the first section of this paper, I discuss the logic of...

This paper examines liberalization of the basic telecommunications sector in a number of Asian countries and the role of the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) in this process. It begins by explaining the working of the GATS as a mechanism for multilateral liberalization efforts. It...

This paper analyses the results of the financial services negotiations under the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) at the World Trade Organization (WTO). It shows that the negotiations have contributed to more stable and transparent policy regimes in many developing and transition...

A major challenge for the multilateral trading system is to secure the benefits of trade liberalization without infringing on the freedom of governments to pursue legitimate domestic objectives. The difficulty lies in distinguishing between two types of situations. In one, a non-protectionist...

The objective of this paper is to assess the adequacy of multilateral rules dealing with monopolies and state enterprises, particularly in the domain of services. This paper argues that since these rules depend largely on the other obligations undertaken by Members, a variety of exemptions and...

This paper explores how regulatory responses to emerging IP issues in digital trade may develop at the international level and in particular how existing mechanisms might influence the chances of developing internationally agreed rules in this regard. The primacy of state sovereignty in...

This paper charts the evolution and diversification of trade in knowledge that has taken place in the quarter-century since the WTO TRIPS Agreement came into force. Entirely new markets have come into being, potentially redefining the very character of 'trade'.

The WTO's Dispute Settlement Mechanism (DSM) has been hailed as a fundamental aspect of the Multilateral Trading System for developing countries. At the same time developing countries face many challenges to ensure their effective participation in the mechanism. This paper presents statistical...