In the wake of the ninth WTO ministerial conference in Bali, in December 2013, there is renewed optimism that the WTO can deliver something. The time is therefore right for member states to strategically reappraise their positions in the context of their overarching domestic and regional trade...

This White Paper was the first elaboration by the global technology giant of its position on the emerging set of international trade rules to govern the digital economy in fora such as the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement and the WTO e-commerce negotiations

This paper first looks at the considerable progress made during the Doha Round in the context of the NAMA negotiations on non-tariff measures (NTMs) and discusses ways in which to retain the forward momentum as the WTO struggles to define its negotiating agenda for the next few years. The paper...

The Doha Round continues to struggle on with its ultimate fate still largely uncertain. This paper, written as part of a broader initiative by the World Trade Institute (WTI), the Economic Research Institute for ASEAN and East Asia (ERIA) and Universitas Pelita Haparan (UPH) in the run up to 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...

With the rise of China as a global economic power, only subscribing in part to the model of market capitalism, and with the rise ‐ before China ‐ of the so‐called Asian tigers, all of which pursued state‐led economic growth strategies, one needs to question whether the free‐market...

This paper exams two mega-regional FTAs under negotiation at the time of writing, namely the Trans-Pacific Partnership and the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership, and exams what the implications may be - particularly of new rules in regulatory sectors hitherto untouched by...

This paper looks at different elements within the negotiated text of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) Agreement that govern various aspects of the digital economy and seeks to appraise the possibility for these rules to serve as a set of generally applicable benchmarks for future trade rules...