The European Union has recently shifted to a trade policy that envisages a greater use of Free Trade Agreements (FTAs). In particular the EU is working on a number of new FTA initiatives. Policy statements also reiterate the EU's commitment to multilateralism in trade and to the completion of...

Rules-based trade is under attack and the WTO is at risk of marginalization. The COVID-19 pan-demic and its detrimental effects on public health, global supply- and value chains and industrial production, have brought back national export restrictions and stopped the free flow of goods and...

There is an ongoing debate about whether standards act as trade catalysts or barriers. This article uses a gravity model to analyze the effects of national standards on the trade of agricultural products between China and the 64 Belt and Road (B&R) countries from 1990 to 2019. Mandatory...

This paper quantifies the economic influence that shocks to EMU cohesion, which in turn reflect the incomplete nature of the monetary union, have on the rest of the world, by disentangling euro area stress shocks and global risk aversion shocks on the basis of a combination of sign, magnitude...

In the last ten years, there has been a sea change in trade and related policies in emerging markets. This results from autonomous reforms undertaken in conjunction with macro-economic stabilization programmes. Many non-tariff measures have been eliminated and tariffs, now the principal trade...

This paper explores and analyses the position of South Africa in relation to the World Trade Organisation (WTO) dispute Settlement system, especially as the most active African WTO member in the application of WTO rules to disputes in the municipal (domestic) context. Despite being a relatively...

The Trade Policy Review Mechanism (TPRM) received much scholarly attention when it was first established in 1989, but has been overshadowed of late by dispute settlement processes. This paper examines the relationship between barriers to trade that are flagged by the World Trade Organization's...

Over the years, the substantive content of international investment agreements (IIAs) has shifted to reflect political change and to respond to lessons learnt in investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS). With a focus on eight IIAs, selected with a view to geographical representativeness, this...

The geographical fragmentation of industrial production alters many of the stylized facts on which trade and trade-and-development models are based, with profound economic and social implications at home. The coexistence of three interconnected dimensions – product, income and finance – has...

Trade can and should play an important role in making progress to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals. This includes trade and investment in services, as realizing many of the goals is conditional on improved performance of services sectors in developing countries. The global environment...