In 2010, relations between the European Union (EU) and China reached their 35-year anniversary. Although initially centred primarily on economic cooperation, China's rapid industrialisation meant that over time this development placed increasing pressure on the environment. Keen to sustain 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...

In this report, the inherent tension between regulatory autonomy and trade liberalisation is addressed with a focus on trade in services. Therefore, this report examines in detail what is meant by the term ‘(constraints on) regulatory autonomy' in trade law literature and develops five...

Human rights and democratic governance have gained a central position on the EU's development cooperation agenda. The paper clarifies how the notion of integrating human rights in development cooperation has been operationalized in EU policy, with emphasis on recent initiatives. New policy...

This contribution explores the interface between private law, global governance and the EU by focusing on the role that the EU plays, and should play, in relation to the use of forms of private law-based governance to make them suit public policy objectives at the European and global levels, on...

This paper addresses how Brazil's use of the WTO dispute settlement vis-à-vis the EU has an impact on trade relations between both parties. After describing their economic relationship, it is demonstrated that Brazil and the EU are not only successful and avid users of the dispute settlement...

In recent years, G20 has emerged as a relatively new, yet influential actor on the world stage which brings together the leaders of the twenty systemically most important economies. Its informality and flexible character warrant the use of the term ‘Informal International Lawmaking' with...