At the Cancuacute;n Ministerial Conference, the members of the World Trade Organization (WTO) disagreed on whether to launch negotiations on multilateral disciplines concerning the four areas of government policy collectively known as the Singapore issues . This amounted to a decision not to...

To date, government procurement has been effectively carved out of the main multilateral rules of the WTO system. This paper examines the systemic and other ramifications of this exclusion, from both an economic and a legal point of view. In addition to relevant elements of the WTO Agreements,...

In December of 2011, the Parties to the World Trade Organization Government Procurement Agreement (GPA) adopted significant revisions to the Agreement. The revised Agreement comprises (a) a much-needed modernization of the text of the Agreement, (b) an expansion of related market-access...

This paper analyzes a prominent dimension of the initial policy response to the COVID-19 pandemic observed in many countries: the imposition of export restrictions and actions to facilitate imports. Weekly data on the use of trade policy instruments during the first seven months of the COVID-19...

The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), which entered into force on 1 January 1994, is an agreement between Mexico, Canada and the United States to ensure that covered goods and services fall under a comprehensive free trade agreement among the three countries. NAFTA included, in...

This paper analyses the new discipline on state-owned enterprises contained in the recently concluded Trans Pacific Partnership Agreement, and evaluates various factors that influenced the shaping of its specific rules. The new discipline consolidates and strengthens related provisions in...