The growth of digital trade is dependant upon greater interconnectivity across borders. Several countries strive to achieve such interconnectivity and integration in digital trade through international trade agreements. Digital trade integration is a complex, multidimensional process that...

The global health crisis that came to be known as the COVID-19 pandemic and started to sweep across the world in early 2020 revealed many vulnerabilities in the economic, social, and political fabric underpinning what much of the world had come to accept as normal. In ways that we are still...

Timely and equitable access to vaccines and other health technologies is vital in effectively responding to pandemics and treating other communicable diseases. This paper shows how countries might overcome real or purported intellectual property (IP) barriers to regional COVID-19 vaccine...

This article provides an overview of the recently concluded Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPP), a treaty the parties have described as comprehensive and ambitious, yet also representing a balance of competing interests. The article focuses on the TPP's chapters relating to investment,...

This chapter addresses the substantive aspects of the exception for Preferential Trade Agreements (PTAs) in relation to goods under Article XXIV of GATT 1994, beginning with an explanation of its structure and scope. The chapter goes on to examine in detail the conditions with which PTAs must...

Most modern preferential trade agreements (PTAs) contain formal state– state dispute settlement mechanisms, and the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPP) will be no exception. The addition of Mexico and Canada to the TPP negotiations brings the total number of TPP parties to 11,...

The growth of digital trade is dependant upon greater interconnectivity across borders. Several countries strive to achieve such interconnectivity and integration in digital trade through international trade agreements. Digital trade integration is a complex, multidimensional process that...

As the vision of the TPP as a living agreement recedes, it nevertheless offers a window into the negotiation of trade and investment agreements and the negotiated positions of the 12 TPP countries on a range of matters of crucial importance to the global economy today. Given the rise of...

This chapter evaluates a number of special legal issues facing the negotiating parties of the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (‘TPP') as they develop a formal State-State dispute settlement mechanism. In particular, it looks at issues relating to conflicts of norms, conflicts of...

Twelve-country negotiations towards the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (‘TPP’) are drawing to a close. The treaty has an ambitious agenda and could radically reshape trade in the Asia-Pacific region. At the same time, the TPP obligations have the potential to significantly restrict the...