The WTO has not been able to recover since the collapse of the Doha Round in July 2008. Several ministerial conferences including the Buenos Aires meeting in December 2017 failed to reach agreement. The US Trump Administration launched a campaign to reform the WTO in 2018 and 2019. This book...

We examine how theoretical and quantitative economic analysis has and can be used in this stage of the DSU process. First, we identify, characterize, and categorize the major classes of disputes e.g., those affecting import protection versus export promotion and use the Bagwell and Staiger...

This paper is a contribution to the literature on rational design of trade agreements. The World Trade Organization (WTO) is an incomplete contract among sovereign states. Incomplete contracts contain gaps. Ex post, contractual gaps may leave gains from trade unrealized; they may create...

This paper constitutes an attempt to reframe and eventually deflate the ongoing “compliance-vs.-rebalancing” debate which has permeated WTO scholarship for the last 10 years. Our main criticism concerns the substance of the entire debate. We find that scholars on both sides of the...

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...

In this essay I seek answers to the following questions: why is it so difficult to resolve international trade disputes caused by domestic health risk regulation against a foreign food; why does the WTO legal system not work very well in solving the disputes; and what might be done to resolve the...

In 2009, China stood at the center stage of the World Trade Organization (WTO) dispute settlement, accounting alone for half of new disputes. From three perspectives, this article examines China's endeavors since WTO accession to respond challenges and support its meaningful participation in WTO...

Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) is an instrument of environmental governance that ensures that the environmental implications of decisions are taken into account before the decisions are made. As such, environmental impact assessment constitutes the legal response to risk management needs...

The aim of this paper is to explore the interactions between international economic law and civil society. The starting point is to analyse the role of international economic law in facilitating the “competition of systems” (principally by reducing barriers to international trade and...

This chapter submits that science has become, in the context of the WTO, an important element (or even a point of reference) in the assessment of domestic health and environmental measures with respect to their compatibility with WTO obligations. Under current practice, WTO panels and the...