People at home and trade negotiators in Geneva cannot bargain what they do not understand, and what they bargain must be based on consensual understanding among the relevant actors, whether or not they agree on what to do about it. Consensual understanding is endogenous, arising in an...

Without transparency, trade agreements are just words on paper. Transparency as disclosure allows economic actors and trading partners to see how rules are implanted; transparency in decision-making ensures fairness and peer review. In the first section of this paper, I discuss the logic of...

Export restrictions can be problematic if trading partners question either their conformity with international obligations or their possibly unintended negative impacts on others. Regulatory transparency can help. This paper examines how three multilateral environmental agreements (MEAs)...

Leaders of the G20 promised repeatedly that they would refrain from trade restrictions in response to the global financial crisis that began in 2008, and that they would minimize the negative impact on trade and investment of stimulus measures. They also promised to hold themselves accountable...

State-owned enterprises (SOEs) are a major force in the Chinese economy and a growing presence in international trade and investment. The challenge to the WTO legal regime is commercial, given their size and their share of Chinese output, and political, given worries that trade and investment by...

The World Trade Organization (WTO) has three primary tasks, to negotiate new rules, monitor implementation, and settle any disputes that arise. It is not fulfilling any of these tasks very well at the moment. Should Members just muddle along, hoping for the best, or seek external advice on how...

Experienced trade negotiators know that their work begins at home in learning what matters for their constituents, and it ends at home in ensuring that any new obligations can be implemented in legislation. Consultations with citizens and economic actors are therefore a fundamental part of...

State support remains a leading cause of tension in international commercial relations. Governments can see trade distortions that look like they were caused by industrial subsidies, but they lack the data to illuminate that state support. In the 1980s at the height of the farm wars the...