International law, political science and economics scholars are all concerned with analyzing the performance of the WTO as an organization. In this paper we focus on the objectives that these different disciplines attribute to the WTO and how performance is assessed against these objectives. The...

International tribunals rely on interpretation of legal texts as a crucial tool in adjudication. What is puzzling is the increasingly wide variation we observe in treaty interpretation by international tribunals across policy areas and over time. The international relations (IR) literature has...

How can we increase economic well-being and expand trade, while promoting the optimal use of the world’s energy resources and protecting and preserving our shared environment? The challenge is daunting and complex. This volume of presentations and discussions from a conference on the...

One of the major obstacles toward mandatory limits on greenhouse gas emissions in the United States is the impact of such limits on the international competitiveness of US firms. Limits on greenhouse gas emissions -- be they in the form of regulation, a carbon tax or a capand-trade system1 –...

Dividing the world in two groups of countries – developed and developing – remains deeply engrained. This bifurcation is increasingly problematic. It has led to deadlock in negotiations and equity concerns. This article traces parallel developments of differential treatment in the trade and...

This contribution makes an empirical assessment of the role of precedent in WTO dispute settlement. As an imperfect proxy it counts cross-references between the 108 Appellate Body reports issued between 1996 and 2013. Using basic tools of network analysis it attempts to answer the following...

Preferential trade agreements (PTAs), of which TTIP is but a recent incarnation, are not as "preferential" as they used to be. Traditional PTAs mainly exchanged "club goods", that is, goods or tariff concessions that are "non-rivalrous" (use by one does not diminish availability to others) but...

The very definition of "preferential trade agreements" (PTAs) channels our almost exclusive attention to the relation between PTAs and the WTO. Successive PTAs between the same countries -- which we call "double PTAs" -- have largely escaped legal scrutiny. Think of the United States and Mexico...

In May 2003, the WTO granted a waiver for trade restrictions imposed on WTO members not participating in the Kimberley Certification Scheme combating so-called "conflict diamonds." This Article examines the implications of this waiver decision. It argues that GATT/TBT provisions may already...

Conventional wisdom has it that, in recent years, the legalized mechanism of dispute settlement before the World Trade Organization (WTO) has been “busier than ever”, “a victim of its own success”. This paper uses count data to assess the WTO’s current caseload and examines how it has...