While the trade regime is often analyzed under the metaphoric assumptions of Newtonian mechanics, we propose an alternative, more organic representation. We argue that the trade regime seems to evolve as a complex adaptive system, at the edge of order and chaos. Drawing from a dataset of 280...

“Trade saves lives” could have been the headline. COVID-19 hit so hard, quickly and across so many nations at the same time, that many countries not only rushed to produce and import, but also imposed export restrictions on protective masks, ventilators and other products they were running...

The dispute settlement system of the World Trade Organization prides itself on its high degree of judicial independence and the impartiality of its adjudicators. Yet compared to other international tribunals, WTO members exert considerable political control over WTO adjudicators. Contestation...

Why is the trade regime amongst the most robust of international regimes? For half a century we have been told that it is because trade law gradually replaced trade politics. This article contests the orthodox view. Part I rewrites the history of world trade as a carefully balanced...

It is hard to think of a better topic for multi-disciplinary study than trade retaliation in the WTO. When a country violates WTO rules, the remedy of last resort is bilateral, state-to-state trade sanctions. Such trade sanctions are imposed against the violating country by one or more other WTO...

In the face of multiple global challenges, in many IOs major policy-making initiatives are under way. In the last two years alone, the WHO started negotiations on a pandemic treaty, the UN kicked off talks on a plastics pollution treaty and the WTO is engaged in ground-breaking initiatives on...

So far WTO jurisprudence has not resolved the puzzle of how WTO Members that are part also of a regional trade agreement (such as NAFTA or MERCOSUR) should conduct safeguard investigations and apply eventual safeguards in line with WTO rules. Can or must they exclude regional imports from the...

One of the new WTO agreements that panels and the Appellate Body had to deal with in a number of recent disputes is the Agreement on Sanitary and Phytosanitary (SPS) Measures. This article focuses on the legal principles of the SPS Agreement as interpreted and established by Appellate Body and...