Are market access commitments on services in Preferential Trade Agreements (PTAs) reciprocal or simply unilateral? If reciprocal, do concessions granted in services depend on concessions received from the trading partner in other services or in non-services areas as well? In this paper we...

The Africa Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) countries have benefited from unilateral preferential access to EU markets under various trade agreements. However, since agricultural trade is increasingly determined by food safety and quality standards, one of the main concerns of ACP countries is their...

The WTO Agreement on Government Procurement (GPA) is a plurilateral Agreement, meaning that it comprises only a subset of the full Membership of the WTO. Currently, a number of WTO Members that are not Parties to the Agreement either are actively seeking accession to it, have commitments to...

In his State of the Union speech, President Obama announced that the United States will launch talks on a comprehensive Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership with the European Union. This initiative is big news, and potentially a game-changer for trade liberalization. For years now,...

On August 22, 2012, the Russian Federation joined the World Trade Organization (WTO), as well as dispute settlement mechanisms designed to resolve WTO trade disputes and governed by the Understanding on Rules and Procedures Governing the Settlement of Disputes (DSU). Hence Russia has since...

Russia has been actively participating in the dispute settlement system handled by the WTO. As of the year-end of 2019, Russia had been involved in a total of 96 disputes: in 8 disputes as a complainant, in 9 disputes as a respondent, and in 79 disputes as a third party. In 2019, Russia became a...

The dispute settlement mechanism in FTAs is necessary as they provide means to settle disagreements on interpretation or compliance with treaty obligations. The dispute settlement mechanism help ease tensions among FTA parties and maintain healthy relationships among trading partners.The dispute...

Qatar became a contracting party to GATT 1994 at the end of the Uruguay Round pursuant to the procedures of Article XXVI:5(c), prior to which it applied the GATT on a de facto basis. Qatar confirmed its commitments on goods and services as part of the Uruguay Round, in which it bound all tariffs...

The WTO utilizes the trade dispute settlement mechanism in accordance with the Understanding on Rules and Procedures Governing the Settlement of Disputes (DSU). As a WTO member, Russia has the right to uphold its trade interests by means of this instrument