In this paper, interpretation and application dispute settlement provisions of European Union (EU) Free Trade Agreements (FTAs) signed between 1963 and 2006 are analysed. This will be through the two models of Dispute Settlement in International Law: the political and adjudicative. Political...

This paper investigates the scope for international rules to address market failures in trade in natural resources and the associated international transactions of prospecting and investment in resource exploitation. We argue that several market failures are likely to have substantial costs....

Realistic estimates of mode 4 trade are virtually non-existent. Based on the GATS legal definition, the paper introduces the statistical conceptualization of mode 4. While showing that balance of payments labour related flows indicators, such as worker's remittances and compensation of...

This Working Paper contains some observations concerning the evolution of trade and trade-related policies in the Asia-Pacific region since the establishment in 1989 of the Trade Policy Review Mechanism (TPRM), whose goal is to improve the transparency of these policies. It also draws some...

We consider the purpose and design of the World Trade Organization (WTO) and its predecessor, GATT. We review recent developments in the relevant theoretical and empirical literature. And we describe the GATT/WTO architecture and briefly trace its historical antecedents. We suggest that the...

The WTO has increased international disciplines on export policy, but there is still scope for the use of export subsidies and other measures to promote exports. Under macroeconomic and trade reforms of the last decade, many countries have reduced or eliminated import measures which operate as...

The rapid rise in global fragmentation - foreign investment, global supply chains, and 'production sharing' - is fundamentally reshaping the multilateral trading system. This paper uses a simple economic modeling framework to understand how the global fragmentation phenomenon may reshape the...

This study surveys preferential rules of origin applied by 192 regional trade agreements (RTAs) covering trade in goods notified to the GATT/WTO up to 1 November 2010. It takes into account the preferential rules of origin that were notified to the WTO; whenever known and available,...

This paper analyzes the reasons why countries may pursue different labeling policies in autarky and how this affects countries' welfare in the context of international trade. In an asymmetric information environment where producers know the quality of the goods they are selling and consumers are...

Trade finance, particularly in the form of short-term, self-liquidating letters of credit and the like, has received relatively favourable treatment regarding capital adequacy and liquidity under Basel III, the new international prudential framework. However, concerns have been expressed over...