Economic theory has made considerable progress in explaining why sovereign countries cooperate in trade. Central to most theories of trade cooperation are issues of self-enforcement: The threat of reprisal by an aggrieved party maintains the initial balance of concessions and prevents...

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...

International investment agreements (IIAs) almost universally define their temporal validity and thus set conditions for States’ exit from these treaties. This study presents the results of the survey of language that determines the temporal validity of 2,061 bilateral investment agreements...

Advanced systems of domestic corporate law generally apply a “no reflective loss” principle to shareholder claims. Shareholder claims are permitted for direct injury to shareholder rights (such as voting rights). But shareholders generally cannot bring claims for reflective loss incurred as...

Corporate law in advanced domestic legal systems on the one hand, and typical treaties for the protection of foreign investment on the other hand, treat claims for damages by company shareholders differently. Advanced domestic systems generally bar shareholders from claiming for reflective loss...

There were 288 regional trade agreements in force at the end of 2018, approximately one quarter (27%) of which included digital trade provisions. These e-commerce chapters have evolved from simple statements, to more comprehensive attempts to cultivate digital trade. This article tests the...

U.S. assertion of political power in the World Trade Organization (WTO)'s appointment process reminds us of the tenuous balance that exists between state power, adjudication and legitimacy in WTO dispute settlement. Even more fundamentally, it prompts questions about whether reformation of...

Binding dispute settlement, meaning the ability to obtain a final judgment of whether a Member of the World Trade Organization (WTO) has acted inconsistently with its obligations, was the defining attribute of the WTO as created in 1995. Global commerce thrived on having the certainty provided...

Most specific trade concerns (STCs), which are raised before the WTO Committee on Technical Barriers to Trade (TBT Committee), disappear from the TBT Committee's meeting agendas without escalating into formal disputes. At the same time, a relatively small number of TBT-related disputes have been...