As a linchpin of global capitalism, the World Trade Organization is both revered and reviled. In this book, financial journalist Paul Blustein tells the surprisingly entertaining and compelling story of how the WTO is sliding into dysfunctionality -- which poses a new and grave menace to globalization itself. In more than seven years of global talks the WTO has struggled and failed to resolve contentious differences between rich and developing nations. Now, with a worldwide recession underway, the WTO's failure is contributing to a rise in protectionism -- a sign that the world may not be so flat after all. Misadventures of the Most Favored Nations recounts, in vivid detail, how the highstakes negotiations went awry. At risk, Blustein argues, is the fate of the system that for six decades has opened the global economy and kept it from splintering.

This timely new title examines the importance and impact of major international organizations and their role in global governance. International Organizations in World Politics focuses on the most influential IOs, including the United Nations, World Bank, International Monetary Fund, and World Trade Organization. For each organization, author Tamar Gutner describes their birth and evolution, governance structure, activities, and performance. A second chapter on each organization presents a case study that illuminates the constraints and challenges each IO faces. Regional organizations and issues are also examined, including the European Union and the euro crisis, as well as a case study on the African Union’s peace operations.

Analysing the emerging international legal framework governing financial institutions and markets, including monetary policies and monetary regulation, this book addresses the cross border issues that arise within this area. It highlights the lack of formal international law present, and shows how this contributed to the global financial crisis.

This volume examines China's approaches to international trade law, investment law, financial law, competition law, and intellectual property.

From boycotting Nestlé in the 1970s to lobbying against NAFTA to the "Battle of Seattle" protests against the World Trade Organization in the 1990s, No Globalization Without Representation is the story of how consumer and environmental activists became significant players in U.S. and world politics at the twentieth century's close.

Questions of power are central to understanding global trade politics and no account of the World Trade Organization (WTO) can afford to avoid at least an acknowledgment of the concept. A closer examination of power can help us to explain why the structures and rules of international commerce take their existing forms, how the actions of countries are either enabled or disabled, and what distributional outcomes are achieved. However, within conventional accounts, there has been a tendency to either view power according to a single reading - namely the direct, coercive sense - or to overlook the concept entirely, focusing instead on liberal cooperation and legalization. In this book, Matthew Eagleton-Pierce shows that each of these approaches betray certain limitations which, in turn, have cut short, or worked against, more critical appraisals of power in transnational capitalism. To expand the intellectual space, the book investigates the complex relationship between power and legitimation by drawing upon Pierre Bourdieu's notion of symbolic power. A focus on symbolic power aims to alert scholars to how the construction of certain knowledge claims are fundamental to, and entwined within, the material struggle for international trade. Empirically, the argument uncovers and plots the recent strategies adopted by Southern countries in their pursuit of a more equitable trading order. By bringing together insights from political economy, sociology, and law, Symbolic Power in the WTO not only enlivens and enriches the study of diplomatic practice within a major multilateral institution, it also advances the broader understanding of power in world politics.

China's historic accession to the World Trade Organization (WTO) in November 2001 not only represents an important milestone in the country’s transition to a market economy and integration into the global economy, but is also among the most important events in the history of the WTO and the multilateral trading system. China and Global Trade Governance: China's First Decade in the World Trade Organization provides us with some fresh empirical data to assess the country’s behaviour in the liberal international economic regime. Such an assessment is both timely and necessary as it can help us better understand China’s role in the evolving structure of global economic governance, in addition to shedding light on the broader debate about the implications of the rise of China for the international system. Through a thorough examination of China’s WTO compliance record and its experience in multilateral trade negotiations, this book seeks to better understand the sources of constraints on China’s behaviour in the multilateral trade institution as well as the country’s influence on the efficacy of the World Trade Organization. In doing so, this project speaks directly to the following questions raised by China’s unprecedented ascent in the international system: Is China a rule maker, rule follower, or rule breaker in international regimes? Is Beijing a responsible stakeholder capable of making positive contributions to global trade governance in the long-term?