Law Commons^™

Is The Wto Quietly Fading Away?: The New Regionalism And Global Trade Rules, Stephen J. Powell, Trisha Low

UF Law Faculty Publications

While scholars and governments alike view the liberalization of international trade as a positive development, they disagree on the medium that will accomplish this objective with the highest economic returns. Some experts believe that multilateralism through the 150+ member World Trade Organization (WTO) is the only way to achieve truly open and efficient trade. Others view multilateralism as but an aspiration and find that regionalism offers the only viable prospect for the meaningful further opening of markets.

In light of what we label the "new regionalism," our paper explores in detail the positive and negative effects of regional trade arrangements …

Redesigning Global Trade Institutions, John Linarelli

Scholarly Works

This is a draft of an essay for the symposium, 2021: International Law Ten Years from Now, held by the Southwestern Journal of International Law in cooperation with the International Law Association (American Branch) Weekend West. The essay deals with two questions. First, what is to be of the WTO and world trade institutions generally? It examines the rise of regionalism in international trade agreements and possible roles for variable geometry for the WTO. The essay critiques proposals to move towards (or back to) plurilateralism for the WTO. Second, what should trade agreements do? This question goes to the core …

Global Laws, Local Lives: Impact Of The New Regionalism On Human Rights Compliance, Stephen J. Powell, Patricia Camino Pérez

UF Law Faculty Publications

Continuation of the brisk pace of international economic growth with its necessarily increased use of natural resources—often at unsustainable levels—and its higher levels of pollution—often at the cost of citizen health—combine with the rules of the global trading system to threaten human rights to health, to freedom from forced or child labor, to non-discrimination, to a fair wage, to a healthy environment, even to democratic governance and participation in the political process. As a result, in recent years a growing number of economists begrudgingly acknowledge the incontrovertible—although presently dysfunctional—linkage between trade and human rights and the need to integrate these …