Javeria Maryam

In today’s integrated global economy, international trade is often seen as a tool to boost female workforce participation. However, achieving sustainable and inclusive growth requires gender-sensitive trade policies to ensure equitable benefits for all.            

Gender-differentiated roles and gender-biased business practices exist in global markets, causing women to be more disadvantaged.

Şeymanur Yönt 

On January 24 2024, the EU announced its strategy on outbound investments with the objective of establishing a comprehensive outbound screening policy. Although the policy outcome will not be known until 2025 at the earliest, the EU is likely to introduce an initiative resembling the US outbound investment screening regime. But the EU is not the US. Introducing such a regime will be a challenge for the EU.

Emilie Kerstens & Belén Gracia

In a recent webinar hosted by TradeExperettes, esteemed experts including WTO DDG Johanna Hill, Alice Tipping, Director of Trade and Sustainable Development at the IISD, and Tiffany Smith, Vice President for Global Trade Policy at NFTC, provided their insightful reflections on the outcomes of MC13, shedding light on its accomplishments, failures and perhaps most importantly, the path forward. 

Christine McDaniel

This week, all eyes are on the WTO 13th Ministerial Conference (MC13) and its 2022 Agreement on Fisheries Subsidies. Further rules proposed for MC13 would help members better target the underlying role of harmful fisheries subsidies that cause overcapacity and overfishing. 

Jane Drake-Brockman & Hildegunn Kyvik Nordås

The internet is a global public good that we can no longer take for granted. Recent years have  witnessed escalating constraints on cross-border  data transfers - undermining the integrity of the internet itself, and threatening the global digital transformation. The WTO has a critical role to play to keep markets open, particularly to the benefit of MSMEs firms in developing countries. MC13 can contribute to this goal.

Princess Puskas & Tlotlo Nkile

Landlocked developing countries (LLDCs) are usually marginalized from major transportation networks and logistics services. to enhance their access to the global market. To overcome this problem, they should cooperate to build sustainable transport and communications infrastructure that improves transit efficiency, promotes regional integration, and enhances business competitiveness.

Princess Puskas

Digital payments have emerged as an alternative to the traditional concept of money. Notably, mobile money has been revolutionary for cross-border remittances in Africa, and a major catalyst for payments growth in the continent. However, despite its increased use and the likelihood it will have a more radical and lasting effect on African markets, there are still remaining challenges to the adoption of mobile money across borders.

Elaine Fahey

Data is the ‘lifeblood’ of the economies and digital trade across the world, but it is also the source of much concern about privacy rights, the capacity for commercial manipulation of personal information, and State and private actor disputes. Institutionalisation can synthesise these many cross-cutting themes and transatlantic efforts in the area of data privacy constitutes a key case study on this topic.

Mia Mikic & Sherry M. Stephenson

What are logistics? From the perspective of late 2022 asking this question may appear ridiculous. The term has been used so much in all aspects of our lives for the last three years that we feel we can intimately relate to it. But do we know what it actually is? The APEC region took the lead in 2022 in pushing forward a better understanding of the important but often underappreciated logistics activities to examine their role in moving essential goods across borders.

María Belén Gracia

The EU and MERCOSUR will negotiate an additional instrument in the Association Agreement to address sustainability issues. This blog explores the possible scenarios that could result from it, with a special focus on deforestation. To achieve consensus, a mutual-gains approach may be the last chance for the Agreement.

Simonetta Zarrilli

A close look at the background and the outcome of the WTO Joint Ministerial Declaration on the Advancement of Gender Equality and Women’s Economic Empowerment within Trade shows us how far WTO Members are willing to go to use trade to overcome gender inequality.

Cecilia Malmstrom

As the WTO Ministerial starts next week, unfortunately, there is not much we can expect, due to the lack of political will. The world is in acute need of global rules and a functioning multilateral system, but reforming the WTO requires political will and a true global commitment.

Gabriella Beaumont-Smith

On March 1, 2022, U.S. President Joe Biden gave his first State of the Union (SOTU) speech. While trade policy has not been a priority for the Biden Administration, it played a larger than expected role in the speech. The president not only explicitly spoke about trade policy but discussed other priorities less obviously related to trade.

Stephanie Honey

Through the last two years the pace of global discussions about trade and gender has accelerated, and innovative new models are under discussion. This is good news; but shifting the dial in a practical way for women is still a work in progress.

Ann-Evelyn Luyten

A look at three different approaches that the U.S. could take in the near future in response to the EU Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM).

Maria V. Sokolova

Around a year ago, when over half of the world was on lockdown, I wrote about how the world was doing ballet-like pirouettes because of Covid-19. This black swan event has shaken the global economy, but where are we one year later?

Charlotte Sieber-Gasser

A new, untested regulatory mechanism for the promotion of (more) sustainable trade through trade preferences is about to be introduced for the first time worldwide.

Ann-Evelyn Luyten

The EU-UK Trade and Cooperation Agreement (TCA), provided that relevant rules of origin are satisfied. At the same time, the TCA includes two notable features regarding trade and sustainable development (TSD) commitments.

Anna Carle

EU-Mercosur Association Agreement, which was finalized on June 28, 2019, has faced strong opposition, particularly from environmentalists who argue that increased trade will intensify Brazilian deforestation rates and violate indigenous rights.

Fiama Angeles, Riya Roy, and Yulia Yarina

The World Trade Organization (WTO) has faced severe criticism for its inability to conclude any major negotiations in over two decades. The lack of consensus among its diverse Membership, who differ considerably in terms of their economic, socio-political structures, and interests, has been at the center of this impasse.

Amrita Bahri

Economic empowerment comes with unfettered access to economic opportunities and resources. The COVID-19 pandemic is exacerbating the impact of these pre-existing barriers in various ways.

Marta Bengoa et al.

The COVID-19 pandemic has shocked the global economy, and also likely altered the global trading system for good.

Huan Zhu

On December 1, 2020, China’s first Export Control Law took effect. The timing of the new law suggests that it is a response to recent high-profile export restrictions targeting Chinese buyers by the Trump administration (examples here, here and here).