Foundations -- Special and differential treatment in the WTO -- The rationale for South-South services trade -- The quest of this study -- Preferential services trade -- Histoy and geography of preferential services trade -- Stock-taking of preferential services trade agreements -- The current...

This paper focuses on the consequences of the legal uncertainty about the scope of GATS V for South-South Preferential Trade Agreements (PTAs). The language of GATS V – and practice so far – supports a large spectrum of different degrees and forms of preferential trade agreements. Arguably,...

Sino-African trade has seen a fifty-fold increase in the years 1999 to 2008. However, China holds not a single Free Trade Agreement (FTA) on the African continent, while other major trading partners of African economies rely on an extensive framework of trade and economic partnership agreements....

Free Trade Agreements (FTAs) are increasingly more concerned with regulatory convergence, rather than trade liberalisation through elimination of tariffs. This appears to result more often in so-called dynamic trade agreements, which still evolve after adoption. Further economic integration in...

Trade, investment and migration are strongly intertwined, being three key factors in international production. Yet, law and regulation of the three has remained highly fragmented. Trade is regulated by the WTO on the multilateral level, and through preferential trade agreements on the regional...

The UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and their explicit reference to the WTO treaties offer a new incentive to rethink the regulatory structure of Special and Differential Treatment (SDT) and the scope of the General Exceptions in WTO law: Among others, the SDGs aim at overcoming the...

While the European integration project successfully strengthened European identity, Brexit, the EEA and Switzerland serve as prominent and constant reminders that European integration – for the benefit of all – should not only come in one-size-fits-all. The EU has demonstrated extraordinary...

Mega-Regional Trade Agreements include large shares of global trade and are likely to cover regulatory cooperation and alignment in selected export industries. They are generally attributed with trade diversion for third countries as a consequence of their discriminatory nature, and with...