This article examines how the GATT Article XXIV regional trade agreement (RTA) exception can be strengthened to curb the proliferation of RTAs that maintain questionable levels of trade liberalization. The lack of rigorous application of the ‘substantially all the trade' requirement and the...

A significant quantity of global merchandise trade takes place under one of two sets of preferential rules of origin (ROO), either those of the European Union, the so‐called Pan‐ European Cumulation System (PECS) or those generally preferred by the United States, as manifested in free trade...

The paper, the editors' introduction to the volume, maps out the main challenges and opportunities resulting from the move, in the past decade, from free-standing investment protection treaties (BITs) towards more broadly-focused treaties addressing integration in trade and investment

In recent years, the number of regional and bilateral trade agreements (hereinafter preferential trade agreements (PTAs)) in the international arena has been growing steadily, amounting to some hundreds of agreements, according to World Trade Organization (WTO) data. These have developed...

The multilateral trading system that emerged in the post-World War II period was mainly a creation by and for developed countries to address protectionist measures adopted in the 1930s. The events that marked the interwar period were characterised by both economic and political challenges that...

Trade in services can take many forms (or ‘modes'), such as cross-border delivery, or delivery by a commercial presence in a foreign country. Unlike tariffs or quantitative restrictions on goods, which are imposed at the border, barriers to trade in services are more commonly found ‘behind...