Abstract: After lengthy and tough negotiations, China became a member of the World Trade Organization (WTO) in 2001, which is widely considered as a landmark economic event in modern world history. The WTO accession marked a milestone of China’s…
Resolving the crisis in the dispute settlement system is a priority issue for the reform of the World Trade Organization (WTO), and Members have made sustained efforts in this regard. Since the Twelfth Ministerial Conference (MC12), discussions on…
In recent years, more and more countries have included different kinds of gender considerations in their trade agreements. Yet many countries have still not signed their very first agreement with a gender equality-related provision. Though most of…
The increasing trend of the inclusion of gender equality and women’s economic empowerment concerns in the negotiation of trade agreements creates a need to strengthen informed dialogue between the public and private sectors. Trade negotiators are…
The distributional outcomes of trade agreements have historically been uneven, creating both “losers” as well as “winners” and benefitting certain stakeholders while leaving others without benefits or even with negative repercussions. In particular…
Preferential Trade Agreements (PTAs) have evolved from being primarily concerned with trade issues to addressing non-trade issues. Apart from focusing on issues like trade in goods, services, and intellectual property-related issues, modern PTAs,…
International arbitration institutions have been requested to administer an increasing number of investment disputes. In investment arbitration, a responding state usually stipulates its standing offers to arbitrate in the bilateral investment…
Regulatory measures on cross-border data flows are essential to personal data protection laws. The General Data Protection Regulation (“GDPR”) of the European Union (“EU”) is one of such influential personal data protection regimes, which has become…
The Framework Convention of Tobacco Control (hereinafter “FCTC”) is the first treaty aiming to combat the tobacco epidemic under the auspices of the World Health Organization (WHO). This multilateral convention seeks to pursue the highest public…
Concerns have been raised over the utilization of third-party funding in investor-State dispute settlement (ISDS). This paper aims to examine how the tribunals deal with the arguments raised by the respondents in the proceeding and evaluate whether…