Takes stock of current challenges to the world trading system and develops scenarios for the future.

The development of new digital technologies has resulted in significant transformations in daily life, from the arrival of online shopping to more fundamental changes in the ways we work and communicate. Many of these changes raise questions that transcend market access and liberalisation, and demand cooperation and coherent regulatory design. International trade regulation has hitherto not reacted in a forward-looking manner to the digital revolution and, particularly at the multilateral level, legal engineering has yielded few tangible results. This book examines whether WTO laws possess the necessary flexibility and resilience to accommodate the changes brought about by burgeoning digital trade. By revealing both the potential and the limitations of the WTO framework, it provides a broad picture of the interaction between digital technologies and trade regulation, links the often disconnected discourses of international trade law, intellectual property and cyberlaw and explores discrete problems in different domains of global trade regulation.

Changing Patterns of Global Trade outlines the factors underlying important shifts in global trade that have occurred in recent decades. The emergence of global supply chains and their increasing role in trade patterns allowed emerging market economies to boost their inputs in high-technology exports and is associated with increased trade interconnectedness.The analysis points to one important trend taking place over the last decade: the emergence of China as a major systemically important trading hub, reflecting not only the size of trade but also the increase in number of its significant trading partners.

A multi-disciplinary investigation of how economic globalization can help achieve the UN's 2030 Agenda, exploring trade-offs among the Goals.

The Changing Landscape of Global Financial Governance and the Role of Soft Law provides interdisciplinary perspectives on the changing landscape of global financial governance by exploring the impact and role of soft law, directly or as a precursor of hard law, pertaining to financial governance. Since the shaping of financial governance impacts national, regional and global levels of regulation, different views and arguments contribute to the ongoing discussions about financial regulation. Against this background, this book brings together perspectives of economists and lawyers who have not rallied to one or the other popular call for more regulation as a panacea for the prevention of future global financial crises, calls which have all but drowned out more nuanced scientific debates. Instead, their analysis of aspects of remedial regulatory policy prescriptions already made or proposed demonstrates that carefully designed soft law can be deployed as a valuable method or tool of mediation between the unrestrained autonomy of dysfunctional markets and overzealously crafted hard law.

This book takes a fresh and much needed perspective on the challenges of trade policy and explores possible futures for trade policy development. By taking the perspective of business studies, the book does not only focus on the economic, policy, or legislative perspectives, but views trade policy as a part of international business environment. The purpose of this book is to bring forward discussions on trade policy development and future development needs and offers a comprehensive read for international business researchers, practitioners and policymakers regarding the interconnections of trade policy and international business.

This collection explores the relevance of global trade law for data, big data and cross-border data flows. Contributing authors from different disciplines including law, economics and political science analyze developments at the World Trade Organization and in preferential trade venues by asking what future-oriented models for data governance are available and viable in the area of trade law and policy. The collection paints the broad picture of the interaction between digital technologies and trade regulation as well as provides in-depth analyses of critical to the data-driven economy issues, such as privacy and AI, and different countries' perspectives. This title is also available as Open Access on Cambridge Core.