This chapter claims that anti-corruption policy and trade and investment treaties pursue the same ultimate goals, albeit through different means. The chapter has two objectives. Firstly, it surveys how the international trade and investment regimes at least indirectly contribute to...

What is the role of economic evidence and arguments in WTO and investor-state dispute settlement? Both regimes epitomize the search for an international rule of law and legal stability. At the same time, both trade and investment agreements are economic contracts. Economics provides insights not...

When do parties introduce novel clauses to a system of contracts or treaties? While important research has investigated how clauses diffuse once introduced, few empirical studies address their initial introduction. Drawing on network theory, this paper argues that novel clauses are introduced...

Is international law quot;Europeanizedquot;? If so, what are the implications of such quot;Europeanizationquot; for the unity and coherence of international law? This paper claims, first, that the application of international law by domestic courts in Europe does not threaten the unity of...

When the WTO permits, or a WTO member engages in, trade retaliation in response to continued non-compliance, what is it trying, or can it legitimately hope, to achieve? This chapter attempts to clarify the goal(s) of WTO suspension from both an historical, descriptive perspective (what has been...

Once the Doha Round is concluded, or officially dead, the time will be ripe for a long term reflection on the future of the world trading system. The world has changed dramatically since the GATT's creation in 1947. Yet, 60 years later, the WTO has not adapted itself to these changes. Although...

Positioning the WTO treaty in relation to other international legal instruments and tribunals is a complex, multi-faceted challenge on which reasoned opinions diverge. This contribution (i) describes how answering the question is, to some extent, an “interpretation choice”, (ii) summarizes...

An increasing number of fora and networks have been recognised to play a role in international or transnational normative processes. While lawmaking by formal, intergovernmental international organizations received abundant attention over the past years, we know less about a phenomenon that this...

Traditional international law and its instruments are stagnating both in terms of quantity and quality. New, alternative forms of cross-border cooperation, in particular processes of informal international lawmaking, have emerged and gained prominence since the 2000s in response to an...