As part of the Doha Development Agenda many members of the World Trade Organization (WTO) and in particular its Director-General have actively promoted the so-called Aid-for-Trade initiative. Rather than offer a comprehensive account of this initiative, the purpose here is to consider its...

Governments are facing an increasing number of arbitration claims by foreign investors relating to important public policies or seeking substantial damages, and many governments are taking a greater joint interest in how such cases are resolved in investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS). This...

In submitting disputes over environmental harms to an international court or tribunal, the parties to the conflict seek a workable remedy for the issue(s) that triggered the action. Environmental disputes are a relatively recent class of cases that have been litigated in international courts....

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...

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...

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...

This paper reviews alleged societal benefits and costs of International Investment Agreements (IIAs) as suggested by academia, governments, business and civil society. It sets out the wide range of issues that diverse actors have proposed in the context of assessing the societal benefits and...

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...

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...