This book analyzes how today's system of international trade law and international economic relations has evolved over the last six decades. Focusing on the major innovations that came with the inception of the World Trade Organization (WTO) with its various agreements in 1994, it also provides in-depth commentary on the intense debate over important matters that remain unsettled. Topics covered include the WTO dispute settlement mechanism; the General Agreement on Trade in Services (OATS); the Agreement on Trade-Related Investment Measures (TRIMS); intellectual property rights – the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS); areas still covered by the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) 1947; the Most Favoured Nation (MFN) concept; special provisions relating to agriculture and textiles; sanitary and phytosanitary measures; technical barriers to trade; pre-shipment inspection; and import licensing procedures. The book would be an excellent resource for scholars as well as practitioners working in the field of international arbitration and trade laws.

This handbook offers a detailed explanation of the rules and procedures of the WTO dispute settlement system.

This is a detailed guide to reading WTO Schedules of Commitments for Goods and Services.

This book provides an in-depth analysis of "Mega-Regionals", the new generation of trans-regional free-trade agreements (FTAs) currently under negotiation, and their effect on the future of international economic law. The main focus centres on the EU-US Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP), the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) and the EU-Canada Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA), but the findings are also applicable to similar agreements under negotiation, such as the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP).The specific features of Mega-Regional Trade Agreements raise a number of issues with respect to their potential effect on the current system of international trade and investment law. These include the consequences of Mega-Regionals for the most-favoured-nation (MFN) principle, their relation to the multilateral system of the World Trade Organization (WTO), their democratic legitimacy and their interaction with existing bilateral investment treaties (BITs).The book is intended for academics and practitioners working in the field of international economic law.

This handbook provides a comprehensive and non-technical explanation of the WTO Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS), later legal instruments, current policy issues and the relationship between TRIPS and public health. It is aimed at an audience including government officials and policy-makers, non-governmental organizations, academics and students.

How did a treaty that emerged in the aftermath of the Second World War, and barely survived its early years, evolve into one of the most influential organisations in international law? This unique book brings together original contributions from an unprecedented number of eminent current and former GATT and WTO staff members, including many current and former Appellate Body members, to trace the history of law and lawyers in the GATT/WTO and explore how the nature of legal work has evolved over the institution's sixty-year history. In doing so, it paints a fascinating portrait of the development of the rule of law in the multilateral trading system, and allows some of the most important personalities in GATT and WTO history to share their stories and reflect on the WTO's remarkable journey from a 'provisionally applied treaty' to an international organisation defined by its commitment to the rule of law.

This handbook provides a holistic understanding of what the World Trade Organization does, how it goes about fulfilling its tasks, its achievements and problems, and how it might contend with some critical challenges.

The History and Future of the World Trade Organization is a comprehensive account of the economic, political and legal issues surrounding the creation of the WTO and its evolution. Fully illustrated with colour and black-and-white photos dating back to the early days of trade negotiations, the publication reviews the WTO's achievements as well as the challenges faced by the organisation, and identifies the key questions that WTO members need to address in the future. The book describes the intellectual roots of the trading system, membership of the WTO and the growth of the Geneva trade community, trade negotiations and the development of coalitions among the membership, and the WTO's relations with other international organisations and civil society. Also covered are the organisation's robust dispute settlement rules, the launch and evolution of the Doha Round, the rise of regional trade agreements, and the leadership and management of the WTO.

One of the most important yet least understood organizations in the world, the WTO is a lynchpin of globalization, allowing us to enjoy products and services from around the globe. However, it also lays bare the frailty of many industries, leading some to claim that it stokes unemployment and harms the developing world. In this engaging introduction, David Collins examines the goals of the WTO and the difficulties experienced by member countries struggling to adapt to the pressures of globalization. Refuting the argument that the WTO should expand its mandate to cover wider social issues, Collins demonstrates how this would confuse the organization’s primary objective – to liberalize international trade. With case studies straight from the headlines and clear explanations of complex issues like regional trade agreements and currency manipulation, this lucid exposition is an essential insight into what the WTO does and how it fits into the world we know.

International trade rules have significant impacts on environmental law and policy, at the domestic, regional and global levels. At the World Trade Organization (WTO), dispute settlement tribunals are increasingly called to decide on environment- and health-related questions. Can governments treat products differently based on environmental considerations? Can they block the import of highly carcinogenic asbestos-containing products or genetically modified crops? Does the WTO allow governments to protect dolphins or endangered sea turtles through the use of import restrictions on certain products? How can civil society participate in WTO dispute settlement? This Guide, authored by five world leaders on international environmental and trade law at the Center for International Environmental Law (CIEL), is an accessible, comprehensive, one-of-a-kind compendium of environment and trade jurisprudence under the WTO. Providing an overview for both experts and non-experts of the major themes relevant to environment and trade, it also analyses how WTO tribunals have approached these themes in concrete disputes and provides selected excerpts of the most significant cases.