Drawing on unbalanced panel data with a maximum of 271,656 bilateral trade flow observations from 1996 to 2021, this study investigates both the linear and nonlinear influence of national Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) performance gaps on green exports. When the ESG performance of the exporting country exceeds that of the destination country, the results indicate that an increase in the ESG gap significantly stimulates green exports, and there is evidence that this stimulating effect is achieved by widening green innovation gaps. However, the marginal effect diminishes as environmental regulations in the destination country become more stringent. Conversely, when the exporting country’s ESG performance is lower, narrowing the ESG gap leads to an N-shaped relationship with green exports, which remains U-shaped after removing the extremes. This research provides empirical evidence and policy implications for the trade effects of ESG performance from a macro perspective, while supporting the rationality and necessity of the ESG concept.

This article considers whether Members of the World Trade Organization (WTO) can develop a collective response to a globally welfare-damaging situation that impacts individual Members differentially. We conclude that collective action remains within the letter and spirit of the WTO Agreements. We set out the enabling procedures for collective action in a WTO dispute setting, in particular, the use of the rarely used situation complaint. We were motivated by the United States’ move to redraw its trade relations and break from its international trade commitments through bilateral negotiations in which it holds asymmetric leverage, buttressed by a pre-emptive announced escalation in response to any attempt by counterparties to join in forging a collective response. We conclude that, if undertaken, collective action can raise each Member’s voice into a countervailing choir and, more importantly, it can reinforce the mutual benefits derived from the multilateral trading system. Collective action thus serves a double purpose in engaging domestic concerns and the collective interests of those intending to preserve the multilateral system on which each Member depends.

This study investigates the effect of participation in the Global Value Chain (GVC) on Multidimensional Energy Poverty (MEPI), and the role played by the quality of institutions (QI) in the short and long run for 51 African countries over the period 1995–2018. For this purpose, the DCCE-PMG approach is employed, as well as both the GVC and QI indices. MEPI includes electricity, clean fuel, and technology for cooking. The findings show that GVC participation negatively affects MEPI in both the short and long run, meaning that the GVC reduces energy poverty in Africa. Besides, there is mixed evidence regarding the heterogeneity effect according to rural and urban locations. The evidence further shows that GVCs interact with institutions to negatively impact both energy poverty and the rural–urban MEPI gap, implying that the better the institutional quality, the larger the effect of GVC integration on energy poverty reduction. Therefore, a better quality of institution enables local firms, participating in the GVC, to easily capture technology and knowledge diffusion to promote energy development and fulfill the spatial inequality in energy poverty. Additional tests allow us to confirm the evidence and, moving forward, the implications of participation in the GVC.

Like many newer EU Free Trade Agreements, the Trade and Cooperation Agreement (TCA) includes commitments concerning labour and social standards and environment and climate policy under the title the ‘Level Playing Field’. This title includes non-regression provisions, which prohibit reducing or weakening certain standards ‘in a manner affecting trade’, and novel rebalancing provisions, which allow the parties to take unilateral measures if material impacts on trade are arising as a result of significant divergences in levels of protection in specific areas of regulation. Although terminology linking trade to labour and environmental issues is becoming reasonably common in trade agreements, there has only been limited consideration as to what trade effects or impacts actually need to be demonstrated. This paper argues that the language of ‘manner affecting trade’ and ‘material impact on trade’ in the TCA denotes a ‘conditions of competition’ test as opposed to a stricter, and relatively more difficult to satisfy, trade remedies model. It further considers the possible application of the provisions in the context of the UK’s 2022 strikes measures, highlighting that even if a conditions of competition test is used, there are serious questions as to whether the non-regression and rebalancing provisions in the TCA are efficacious in achieving values-based objectives.

Investment facilitation is an increasingly important policy tool to promote foreign investment. However, we know very little about its prevalence. This paper introduces a new dataset for measuring the adoption of investment facilitation measures at country level. The Investment Facilitation Index (IFI) covers 101 measures, grouped into six policy areas, and maps adoption across 142 economies. The paper outlines the conceptual and methodological framework of the IFI, analyses the current levels of adoption, and demonstrates the index’s robustness. The data show that economies with lower adoption rates typically belong to the low-income or lower-middle-income groups, often located in Sub-Saharan Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean. This dataset serves as a benchmark for assessing the design and impact of international agreements, such as the Investment Facilitation for Development Agreement (IFDA). It can also support the IFDA implementation by guiding domestic assessments of technical assistance needs and capacity development.

The purpose of this study is to reveal the impact of pilot free trade zones (PFTZs) on local governance quality (LGQ) to provide a reference for driving governance reforms in China. Based on provincial panel data from 2004 to 2020 in China, the impact of the establishment of PFTZs on LGQ is analyzed by employing the multi-period difference-in-difference (DID) method. The results show that the establishment of PFTZs can significantly enhance the governance quality of local governments, but there is heterogeneity in location and establishment batches. PFTZs improve LGQ through the effects of institutional spillover, factor allocation, and talent agglomeration. FDI spillover can partially substitute for promoting the effect of PFTZs on LGQ, and economic growth pressures can distort the positive effect of PFTZs on LGQ. Therefore, policymakers should clarify the functional positioning of PFTZs and leverage their effects, which are institutional spillover, factor allocation, and high-end factor agglomeration, to enhance LGQ.

This article examines how critical minerals (CM) supply security has been absorbed into the evolving concept of national security underpinning foreign investment screening (FIS), using Australia’s treatment of Chinese CM investment as a case study. It argues that FIS now functions as a tool of strategic alignment through selective, opaque restrictions under the logic of friend-shoring. This shift raises structural tensions with Australia’s obligations under international investment agreements (IIAs). Through analysis of Australia’s FIS regime, its implementation shaped by a CM friend-shoring strategy, and potential conflicts with its IIAs with China, the article situates Australia within a broader global trend in which the expansion of FIS increasingly challenges the coherence of international investment law. It offers a novel conceptualization of FIS as a legal expression of the geoeconomic turn and proposes recommendations for reconciling strategic regulatory discretion with treaty-based commitments in an era of contested globalization.

To mitigate uncertainty, it is often assumed that governments negotiate ample flexibility provisions when entering new international treaties. Yet, the case of preferential trade agreements (PTAs) suggests that governments prioritize the more stringent commitments when faced with uncertainty. In this paper, we investigate the effects of uncertainty spikes occurring during negotiations on the design of 251 bilateral PTAs. Our theory proposes that sharp increases in uncertainty make governments more prone to signing deeper PTAs to emphasize their commitment to liberalization. In doing so, governments cater to firms’ demands for institutions protecting investment, upholding intellectual property rights, and promoting regulatory harmonization. We find robust evidence that PTAs are deeper when the contracting parties are faced with uncertainty spikes during negotiations. However, we do not find equally consistent evidence that countries also make PTAs more flexible. While much of the rational-design literature has focused on flexibility as a tool to cope with uncertainty, our findings suggest that countries rather tend to tighten their international commitments in turbulent times.

Why do some countries cooperate in international negotiations while others do not? This paper examines how regime type and trade relationships jointly shape cooperation among states. While prior research claims that democracies are inherently more cooperative and that trade fosters collaboration, we argue that neither factor alone sufficiently explains patterns of cooperation. Drawing on 1,567 documents submitted by World Trade Organization (WTO) members during the Doha Round negotiations (2000–2012), we analyse cooperation between country pairs (dyads) using hurdle models to assess both the likelihood and extent of cooperation. We find that democracies are not uniformly more cooperative but become so only when high levels of trade interdependence exist. Similarly, democracies also cooperate with authoritarian regimes when intensive trade relationships are present. These results challenge the assumption that democratic governance naturally generates cooperation, showing instead that economic incentives play a decisive role. The study advances understanding of international cooperation in complex multilateral negotiation settings.

Trade concerns at World Trade Organization (WTO) Committees and Councils show the WTO’s involvement in addressing digital trade beyond treaty-making and dispute settlement cases. Observations from a database analysing relevant concerns foremost raised at the Committee on Technical Barriers to Trade (TBT) show an increasingly significant occurrence of trade concerns not corresponding to the idea of them being a vehicle for tension-defusing dialogue. Two relevant observations are the prominence among involved WTO members of China, the European Union, and the United States of America, and the contentiousness of raised issues, such as cybersecurity or artificial intelligence. Those observations highlight that concerns voiced about digital trade in technical WTO bodies, such as the TBT Committee, also are vehicles of members’ political commitment and confrontation. The article concludes by putting these findings in the perspective of the contribution that WTO bodies, like the TBT Committee, can make to address digital trade.

Critical minerals are at the centre of divergent state interests defined by developmental objectives, security objectives, energy transition, and sustainability imperatives. Unlike non-critical commodities, they exhibit heightened strategic importance but suffer from significant concentration of supply chains, notably in China. As securitization of trade reshapes global supply chains, governments are looking beyond traditional experiences with international commodity agreements, towards modernized tools of trade and investment cooperation to secure reliable critical mineral supplies. This article offers descriptive and analytical insights into the consequent non-binding international instruments on critical minerals, concluded by the most active participants in this topic: the United States, the EU, Japan, Canada, and Australia, who are amongst the largest demanders and suppliers of these minerals and are all economically developed. It finds that such instruments bear several potential systemic and institutional implications for rulemaking and governance in international trade, which include their ability to divert agency away from the resource rich, the concentration of norm creation and standard creation amongst a few, the phenomenon of ‘selective de-legalization’, and lack of transparency. By highlighting several trends and sources of potential concerns for commodity-dependent countries, this article urges a reassessment of this emerging framework advocating for the need to better balance state interests.

As digital connectivity expands and more services become tradable online, international trade is increasingly transitioning into the digital realm. Consequently, the regulatory environment facilitating digital trade has emerged as a central aspect of trade policy. Empirical research plays a vital role in informing the design, implementation, and reform of regulatory policies to facilitate trade in the digital era. However, such research heavily relies on the availability of up-to-date regulatory information across various countries. This paper introduces the Digital Trade Integration (DTI) database, which provides an overview of regulatory policies and practices expected to impact digital trade integration across 146 countries. These measures are organized into 65 indicators and 12 policy pillars covering restrictive and enabling policies. This paper highlights global and regional trends that are considered the four main components of digital trade integration: regulating (Information and Communication Technology) ICT goods, online services, investment in sectors relevant to digital trade, and data. The findings underscore the necessity for ongoing research and policy development to foster an equitable and integrated global digital economy.