This chapter explores the relationship between international trade and sustainable development, with a particular focus on climate change. It traces the evolution of the multilateral trading system from its origins in the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade to the present day, highlighting the shift from a focus on trade liberalisation to a broader commitment to sustainable development. The chapter examines how the World Trade Organization has grappled with integrating environmental concerns into its framework, including the development of ‘greening’ jurisprudence, institutions, and rules. It proposes a reform agenda to further align the trading system with global sustainability goals, emphasising the need for alignment with climate change commitments, harmonised sustainability standards, reformed subsidy approaches, governance and institutional reforms, and a focus on equity and justice.

This chapter examines the legal framework of contingent protection measures in international trade, focusing on anti-dumping duties, countervailing duties, and safeguards. It outlines the relevant WTO rules, including the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), and explores the justifications for these measures. These trade remedies, while protectionist, address concerns of unfair trade practices and market disruption. The chapter also addresses the challenges posed by non-market economies and the evolving role of subsidies. Finally, it discusses the economic, political, and geopolitical rationales for contingent protection, highlighting the tension between fairness and efficiency in international trade.

This chapter examines the role of tariffs and quotas in international trade law, focusing on their regulation within the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade and the World Trade Organization. While often associated with free trade, these legal frameworks primarily discipline rather than prohibit protectionism, favouring tariffs as the more acceptable instrument. The chapter traces the evolution of tariffs as the preferred trade barrier, contrasting them with the general prohibition on quotas. It also discusses the complexities of tariff application, including classification, valuation, and origin determination. Finally, it considers the future of tariffs and quotas, and the challenges of achieving full trade liberalisation without regulatory harmonisation to prevent regulatory arbitrage.

This chapter analyses the WTO’s institutional features, focusing on rule-making and dispute settlement. It describes the creation of the GATT and the shift to the WTO, analysing salient aspects of the WTO’s structure. It reviews how WTO institutions have operated, highlighting problematic features and identifying potential reforms. The WTO is widely viewed as a seriously flawed institution. Despite its goal of promoting liberalised trade, members have found it virtually impossible to conclude new agreements. The dispute settlement system, once viewed as its crown jewel, now lies in tatters. While many factors have contributed to the current situation, the multilateral trading system’s institutional architecture is deeply implicated.

This chapter examines the political economy of international trade policy, exploring the evolution of the international trading system from the GATT to the WTO. It analyses the fault lines between free trade and fair trade and winners and losers, and the role of labour market policies in addressing transition costs. It also discusses the challenges facing the WTO, including institutional dysfunction and an expanding mandate. It proposes potential solutions, such as plurilateral agreements and improved institutional arrangements, while emphasising the need for collaboration with other international agencies. The chapter concludes by stressing the urgency of recovering the aspirations of the post-war international order to address current global challenges.

Europeans promoted many alternatives to what became in the 1990s ‘neoliberal globalisation’. In the 1970s and 1980s, they promoted a vision of globalisation that was a compromise between liberty capitalism, solidarity capitalism, and community capitalism with its STABEX programme in 1975, which aimed to stabilise export revenue for some associated countries in the Global South. Thatcher’s policy with Nissan or shipyards shows that even a neoliberal leader such as she could practice neomercantilism, but in a much less systematic and showy manner than in Colbertist France. For all that, there was no common promotion of ‘European preference’, despite numerous talks. A minimal promotion of community capitalism emerged through the notion of ‘normative power’. The failure of the most ambitious projects should not obscure the weight of (often EC-level) protectionist regulations in numerous international markets during the 1970s and 1980s. This came in sectors such as agriculture, steel, textiles, and automobiles, before the advent of a more neoliberal form of globalisation after the completion of the Uruguay Round of the GATT (1986–1994).

In 1957 the Europeans created the European Economic Community, which is the basis for today’s European Union. Despite its name, this Community has not been able to promote communitarianism in the sense used in this book, namely a policy seeking to bolster the group. Creating a European organisation based on community capitalism has involved grappling with complex questions: who is a partner and who is a foe? Should Europeans companies be favoured or not? Should Europeans be capable of defending themselves independently, or through the US alliance? This chapter will show first that during the Cold War (1947–1991) defence and diplomacy were largely coordinated on a North Atlantic scale through NATO, despite numerous attempts to create a ‘European power’ (including with a nuclear arsenal). Second, some form of European protectionism nevertheless thrived in specific areas, such as agriculture and aeronautics, but surprisingly not in energy. Third, the ubiquity of national industrial policies led European institutions to counterbalance these policies through free-market rules rather than the creation of Europe-wide industrial policy.

Describes progress towards GATT and Meade’s work before leaving government service.

A framing case study discusses European Union trade rules that ban the sale of all products made from seals. Then the chapter provides an overview of international trade law. The chapter discusses: (1) how states have historically promoted international law, including major concepts and the evolution of trade institutions; (2) major obligations under contemporary trade law, including rules for market access and treatment standards; and (3) major exceptions under trade law that allow states to restrict trade to prevent unfair trade, safeguard economies from unexpected shocks, protect competing values (like human health and the environment), and preserve national security.

International trade law is a subset of public international law and consists of the rules governing trade between nations. Historically this area of law was primarily concerned with trade in goods, but now includes trade in services (effectively the cross-border supply and consumption of services) and trade in intellectual property. International trade law has relevance to other fields of international economic law, including investment law. However, the focus of this chapter is on trade law as conducted under the auspices of the World Trade Organization (WTO), an organisation that commenced on 1 January 1995. This chapter briefly introduces these concepts, and then explains the current structure of the WTO. It then covers the core disciplines of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade 1994 and the main exceptions to these disciplines, before turning to the safeguards, dumping and subsidies regimes. The chapter then introduces the two agreements that cover regulatory standards at the WTO, and finally provides an overview of the General Agreement on Trade in Services.

Accounts concerning the world trading system usually start the debate from the negotiation of the GATT. Trade integration before the First World War, though, had been quite remarkable, and the study of this era enriches our understanding of modern institutions in at least two ways. First, a number of GATT provisions had already been shaped during discussions following the advent of the League of Nations. Second, trade integration before the First World War did not manage to put a brake on belligerent behaviour, putting to rest the old Montesquieuan idea of doux commerce. Recent developments (like the invasion of Ukraine by Russia) can be analysed in this context, so that the world trading community can better grasp the limits of trade integration, and its impact on international relations.

The WTO is founded on commitments that governments make to each other in the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade. These rules provide a structure for international trade in which governments are generally restricted in when they can raise tariffs on imports and whether they can discriminate among their trading partners. This chapter examines the contemporary framework for international trade and its main rules, including national treatment, bound tariffs, and most-favored nation, as well as the WTO’s dispute settlement process. The Shrimp-Turtle case provides an illustration of how these rules interact with international politics to create new political dynamics.

The theory of law put forward in this book is founded on the idea of interdependence. Interdependence generates goods taking the form of a community. In law a community involves common legal obligations pertaining to goods. The WTO Agreement establishes a “club good.” Its essence is the equality of opportunity for economic operators in members’ markets. These legal arrangements have given rise to enormous networks of global supply and value chains. At the same time, however, they have generated unease at de-industrialization and exposed critical vulnerabilities. Whereas at the time of the WTO’s founding in 1995 the unconditional interdependence called for in the WTO Agreement might have been regarded as beneficial, today it is seen as less so. Consequently, the club good of the organization appears to be splintering into individual goods composed of specific trading relationships. Consequently, support for the organization and its dispute settlement system has ebbed. Nevertheless, there appears to be recognition of residual worth in the WTO Agreement and its dispute settlement system, which may continue to serve as a locus for transformative solutions.

In this chapter, Aris Georgopoulos and Petros Mavroidis examine the contribution of the WTO dispute settlement body to the resolution of trade disputes. This chapter documents the problems and challenges faced by the WTO’s dispute settlement body and reveals their debilitating impact on its work. This chapter then puts forward concrete proposals for the establishment of a new WTO Court and explains why such a course of action has a realistic chance of breaking the current impasse and creating an effective dispute settlement body for trade disputes.

There is an increasing need for international cooperation with respect to trade – to meet the challenges to human health and food security and to deal with climate change, to provide for the greater well-being of the world’s peoples. For conflict-affected countries, integration into the trading system is a path to attaining and then maintaining peace. To be successful in meeting these challenges, much will depend on the external environment – conditions that enable and others that obstruct collaboration. But there is also an environment internal to the trading system, making its institution, the WTO, more fit for purpose by putting into place the necessary reforms.

International economic law is an umbrella term with no fixed meaning. At its broadest, it covers all aspects of economic relations between states, including regulation of the conduct of individuals, corporations and international organisations. A narrower meaning is ‘the segment of public international law directly governing – rather than merely affecting – economic relations between States or international organizations’. The field also embraces governance arrangements, such as the World Bank, International Monetary Fund, and World Trade Organization, as well as the many UN and regional bodies that advance economic development. As space does not permit a discussion of all these aspects, this chapter focuses on two important areas: international trade law and international investment law. International trade law is the body of law, mainly treaty based, that governs the terms on which states permit the trade in goods and services across their borders.

What is the relationship between the global economy and international law? In this chapter, we examine instruments that reflect the liberalism that has prevailed in international trading relations for the last half-century.  The resulting instruments include the articles of the World Trade Organization, the World Intellectual Property Organization, and the Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Agreement. We also highlight anti-corruption instruments and various non-governmental organizations that also share the goals and processes of international liberalism.   The middle section examines attempts to combat the various and increasingly sophisticated forms of corruption in international business transactions, especially the explosion of difficult-to-combat cyber fraud.  The latter part of the chapter notes a growing trend towards economic nationalist goals, and anti-competitive behavior among state and business elites.