This paper examines the Association Agreement between the EU and six Member States of the Sistema de la Integración Centroamericana (SICA), in particular Part IV of the Agreement (trade). More specifically, the paper is concerned with the repetition and reinforcement of WTO norms in the...

Since the end of WWII, significant progress has been made on the road the liberalisation of global trade. The establishment of a rule-based multilateral trading system administered by the World Trade Organisation (WTO) has been an important part of this process. Yet trade-restricting national...

The present paper analyzes the evolution of the specialization and trade patterns of China, India, Brazil and South Africa (CIBS) and other WTO countries. It aims to provide an answer to the following questions: is there a tendency to a multi-polarization of trade patterns? If so, is CIBS' rise...

The World Trade Organisation Government Procurement Agreement (GPA) has created the most comprehensive plurilateral system for procurement-related trade liberalisation. However, there has been a proliferation of free trade agreements (FTAs) regulating public procurement liberalisation, including...

We study the endogenous formation of climate coalitions linked to a preferential free trade arrangement. In a multi-stage strategic trade and participation game, coalition and fringe countries dispose of a discriminatory tariff on dirty imports as well as emission permits imposed on domestic...

This paper argues that deadlock in the Doha Round of trade negotiations is due to the increasing complexity of economic globalization. It represents a transformative shift on the part of Member nations away from the current model of trade multilateralism and towards smaller negotiating...

The increased "legalization" embodied in the revised Dispute Settlement Procedure (DSP) of the World Trade Organization (WTO) is shown to be an institutional innovation that increases the opportunities for states to temporarily suspend their obligations in periods of unexpected, but heightened...

While recent preferential trade agreements (PTAs) cover an increasingly broad range of policy areas beyond their traditional competence for reducing bilateral tariffs, little is known about the implications of this new emphasis on interactions with other trade-related policy measures. We...

We address the trade effect of restrictive product standards on the margins of trade, by matching a detailed panel of French firm exports with a new database compiling the list of Sanitary and Phyto-Sanitary regulatory measures that have been raised as a concern in dedicated committees of the...