The proliferation of preferential trade agreements in recent years has reenergized a long-standing debate over their benefits and costs. This paper argues that a balanced view is in order. The trade creating effects of free trade agreements (FTAs) are likely to fall off sharply with increasing...

The WTO as we know it – version 1.0 – was created for an industrial economy with an overlay of a knowledge-based economy that is now being transformed into a data-driven economy. The content of WTO rules for this new digital economy promises to be very different what is in place now. Not...

The Trans-Pacific Partnership includes a chapter on regulatory coherence and measures to reduce trade costs arising from divergent standards. We review the substantive content of the TPP's measures in light of existing processes in international organizations addressing good regulatory...

On December 11-12, 2003, the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade convened an informal roundtable of leading observers of international trade and in-vestment for a discussion of the prospects for the Doha Development Agenda in light of the developments at the Fifth Minis-terial...

This paper addresses the question: what is the substantive case for the Doha Round, in terms of commercial benefits to the negotiating parties and in terms of more general improvements to the system of international governance that are to be discussed? The paper notes that the starting point for...