Is there something really new about "land grab" except its extent? What is wrong with an investment contract allowing the holder to buy a farm and to export wheat to Saudi Arabia, or soybeans and maize as cattle feed to Korea, or to plant and process sugar cane and palm oil into ethanol for...

The TTIP leaks - and the WTO rights of all member countries - may have opened a welcome window of opportunity for third countries, blinded as they apparently all are by the prospects of trade liberalisation racing ahead with megaregional steps too big for them to buy in with any hope for...

Among the responses to the Brexit Referendum result on 23 June 2016 one issue was noticeably absent: the implications from a WTO perspective. Leaders have tried to reassure the world that the UK would be at least as good a WTO Member as during its 43 years under the EU umbrella. Some have argued...

Once more, agriculture threatened to prevent all progress in multilateral trade rule-making at the Ninth WTO Ministerial Conference in December 2013. But this time, the “magic of Bali” worked. After the clock had been stopped mainly because of the food security file, the ministers adopted a...

On the face of it, many developing countries, even least developed ones, seem to be doing just fine in terms of agricultural production and trade expansion. This paper cannot answer the question whether the present multilateral rules framework strengthens or imperils resource-poor countries and...

This paper asks how countries can implement their commitments to limit the increase in the global average temperature under the recent Paris Agreement on Climate Change for agriculture. An initial examination of the relevant trade rules and case law indicates that they appear unable to legally...

In this paper we discuss the relationship between labour market regulation and regional trade agreements from both a legal and an economic angle. We examine empirically whether regional trade liberalisation is associated with deterioration (“race to the bottom”) of domestic labour standards...

Ethiopia has for a long time been one of the world's most food-insecure countries. Efforts by the government and a multitude of sponsors including NGOs have developed an array of institutions and instruments to mitigate the negative impact of production and supply disruptions. Public stockpiles...