Reuters is reporting on what they refer to as a "UN study" that argues "[t]he world needs clearer rules to judge when trade curbs on environmental or health grounds are justified or are simply protectionist."  It also "urged governments to work out a common

Here is a notice regarding the recently published papers from one of the "WTO at 10 conferences: The WTO at Ten: The Contribution of the Dispute Settlement System", edited by Giorgio Sacerdoti, Alan Yanovich, and Jan Bohanes, assesses the first ten years of the World Trade Organization.  It

The World Bank has just published a new report on doing business in 175 countries, examining regulation and regulatory reform in a number of areas.  The central concern of the report is cost-benefit analysis of regulation:  what types of regulation that seem to provide little benefit are most costly?  This

This from Daniel Drezner's blog: . . . devoted fans of danieldrezner.com can click here to read my just-released book from the Council on Foreign Relations, U.S. Trade Strategy: Free Versus Fair . From the press release: While policymakers agree that promoting trade expansion serves U.S. national interests, they

Over at Opinio Juris, Roger Alford has a post criticizing the Appellate Body's findings on zeroing in the U.S. - Zeroing (DS294) case.  He also has an article on the subject, elaborating on his points in the post.  I haven't had a chance to read

Ben Bernanke, Chairman of the Fed, has made his views on globalization known in a well publicized speech. Globalization is nothing new, it is the way of the world, free trade is wonderful, a cross between liberty and gravity. This is all well rehearsed and unsurprising. Only towards the end,

Dr. Fred Bergsten, Director of the Institute for International Economics, wrote in Financial Times that a grand Asia-Pacific regional bloc, i.e., "Free Trade Area of the Asia-Pacific Region (FTAAP)," should be launched as a "Plan B" in the face of the moribund Doha Round. See

The conventional wisdom in the GATT days was that complainants requested consultations under Article XXII when they wanted to attract third parties and negotiate, but under Article XXIII:1 when they did not want third parties intervening and didn't especially want to negotiate.  These days, it appears that

A new journal, The Africa International Trade Review, has put out a call for papers on its site: http://www.chr.up.ac.za/academic_pro/llm2/africa_international_trade_review.html The journal describes itself as: "This multi-disciplinary journal, a first in Africa, forms part of the UP