Elisa Baroncini
On April 2, 2025, the US President issued an executive order imposing very high tariffs on third countries, especially China, to address the trade deficit accumulated over the past two decades versus the rest of the world. Based on the 1977 International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA), the so called « Liberation Day » tariffs had to be added to the previous, already problematic, customs duties raised e.g. on aluminium and steel. The new tariff policy of the US provoked a political and economic turmoil, and a very intense debate on their compatibility with the WTO system, the US free trade agreements, the US constitutional order. The Liberation Day was followed by the conclusion of a wide net of bilateral tools, the US Agreements on Reciprocal Trade (ARTs), which are still being negotiated with several third countries. The purpose of the present contribution is to identify the reasons at the basis of the US approach, the compatibility of the US unilateral and treaty measures with the WTO system, and the common features of ARTs. Attention will also be devoted to the complex and relevant litigation practice within the US, which is contesting the legitimacy of the US presidential measures, recently culminating in the February 2026 ruling of the US Supreme Court holding that IEEPA is not the correct legal basis for the Liberation Day tariffs. Finally, consideration will be given to the possibility of identifying a multilateral mechanism simpler than Article XXVIII of the GATT to modify WTO tariff bindings, and the debate, within the WTO reform process, to revisit the functioning of the MFN clause so as to achieve the « level-playing field » recently invoked by the US as well as by the EU.
Elisa Baroncini
With the growing difficulties in the Western world to mine, process, and refine raw materials and rare earths on their territory at reasonable prices while keeping sustainable standards for the environment and workers, China concentrated its economic efforts on mining activities since the 1980s, when the Beijing Government identified rare earths as a strategic industry to develop. Critical minerals are essential, with no alternative, components for the military industry, the energy and digital transitions, and more generally for technological innovation. In the new millennium, at the end of the first decade, the Chinese monopoly over those raw materials began to be used as a highly effective means of pressure on Beijing’s political targets through trade measures such as export restrictions (or total bans) and export duties. The leading cases brought by the EU, the US, Japan, and Mexico, while concluding for the WTO incompatibility of Chinese measures, have not, in practice, succeeded in limiting China’s worldwide dominant position. On the contrary, Chinese dominance strengthened and expanded its relevance, exploiting natural resources beyond its territory through massive outbound investments, particularly in Africa and Latin America.
The purpose of this contribution is first to analyze the EU Raw Materials Diplomacy set up through the Memoranda of Understanding signed by the European Commission with several resource-rich countries, aiming at sustainability, the beneficiation of the territorial States, and the diversification of the EU's critical minerals supply chains, also taking into account the more recent and wider model of the EU Clean Trade and Investment Partnerships. Subsequently, the US initiatives on critical minerals will be reconstructed, considering the bilateral arrangements, the strategic stockpiling of relevant raw materials, and the negotiation of a plurilateral agreement on critical minerals to which the EU should also participate. Finally, we will enquire into the effectiveness of EU and US tools in achieving the goal of creating a fair and secure parallel market for critical minerals, overcoming the disruptions caused by political tensions with the Chinese monopolist. Our analysis will conclude by discussing the opportunity and feasibility of shaping and including the EU- and US-negotiated measures on critical materials into the WTO’s variable geometry of plurilaterals.
Giovanna Adinolfi
International trade law encompasses a wide range of agreements concluded by States, with differing territorial scope and levels of binding force. Against this background, this presentation aims to classify this varied treaty practice and to contextualise it under the framework of the multilateral trading regime established under the aegis of the World Trade Organisation (WTO).
The multilateral trading system established under the auspices of the World Trade Organization (WTO) includes 166 members, among them the European Union and all its member States. It has faced a significant crisis in recent decades. The reasons for this crisis are multifaceted, including the deadlock in the dispute settlement mechanism, the adoption by some leading members of trade measures that clearly violate WTO fundamental principles and obligations, and a normative gap. In this last regard, it is undisputable that, more than 30 years after its entry into force, the WTO rulebook requires revision in order to provide a normative framework that adequately addresses current States’ interests. However, this modernization faces procedural obstacles. Indeed, the incorporation into WTO law of new multilateral trade agreements (MTAs, binding upon all Members) or plurilateral trade agreements (PTAs, binding only upon members having accepted them) requires a consensus decision of the WTO Ministerial Conference or General Council. Majority decision-making is possible, but it has never been pursued in the WTO. At present, the consensus requirement prevents the incorporation of the Agreement on Investment Facilitation for Development and of the Agreement on Electronic Commerce into Annex 4 to the Marrakesh Agreement, notwithstanding that the two texts are supported, respectively, by 128 and 72 members. However, even in the case a new MTA is added to Annex 1, its entry into force for all WTO Members is not guaranteed: for instance, the Agreement on Fisheries Subsidies was included in Annex 1A to the MA in 2022, but, at present, it is in force only for a total of 116 members, proving that, despite being founded on the “single undertaking approach”, WTO law does not exclude trade liberalization “at variable geometry”.
On a preferential basis, the number of trade agreements concluded on a regional or cross-regional basis (hereinafter, regional trade agreements – RTAs) has increased significantly in the last decades, also as a consequence of the WTO crisis. As a common feature, these agreements introduce tariff preferences in trade relations among the contracting parties, contravening their most-favoured-nation obligations under WTO agreements. However, WTO law includes specific exception clauses that allow derogation from MFN clauses, provided certain requirements are met (Article XXIV GATT 1994 and Article V GATS). Scholars debate extensively whether RTAs constitute building blocks or stumbling blocks to the multilateral trading system, the scope of relevant WTO exception clauses, and the possible interpretation of some vague terms included therein, only partially clarified by the 1994 Understanding on Article XXIV. Amidst the WTO crisis, RTAs could represent a sort of safety valve: they sustain the momentum for trade liberalization in times of trade weaponization at a global level; they acknowledge the significance of the multilateral system, insofar as they refer to and/or incorporate WTO law (e.g, chapters on TBT, SPS, antidumping, subsidies); and they could act as experimental laboratories to develop solutions to pressing trade concerns of States, which could be discussed within the WTO if and when a fully operational multilateral system is restored.
A third trend in trade relations can be observed in recent years: minilaterals, where groups of like-minded countries engage in discussion and, if agreed, negotiate specific issues. Some of these initiatives have been initiated within the WTO, despite not being integrated into multilateral negotiations (e.g,, trade and environmental sustainability, fossil fuel subsidy reform, trade and health, small vulnerable economies, and MSMEs), while others are pursued outside that institutional context (e.g. the Agreement on Climate Change, Trade, and Sustainability, on the elimination of tariffs on trade of environmental goods, concluded between Costa Rica, New Zealand, Iceland and Switzerland. From a legal perspective, it remains to be seen whether these initiatives will a) ultimately be implemented in accordance with WTO obligations, b) lead to proposal for the incorporation of new agreements to Annex 1 of the Marrakesh Agreement (with all the above-mentioned difficulties for their entry into force) or c) constitute “subsequent agreements” under Article 41 of the 1969 Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties.
Finally, a fourth trend in trade negotiations can be observed: the resolution of trade disputes through the conclusion of a mutual understanding or the adoption of joint statements that establish a political compromise among the parties. This new practice is exemplified by the EU-US Joint Statement of August 2025, where the two parties have agreed, on one hand, the replacement by the US of its “reciprocal tariffs” on imports from the EU with a 15% tariff, and, on the other hand, the elimination by the EU of duties on imports of industrial products from the United States, along with certain trade preferences on agricultural imports. This practice represents the most concerning challenge to the multilateral trading system today, as it constitutes, if implemented under Article 207 TFEU, a clear breach also by the European Union of its WTO obligations, notwithstanding the commitment to international law articulated in Articles 3(5) and 21 TEU. This development has been followed by the EU’s acknowledgment of the necessity to reexamine the role of the MFN principle within the multilateral trading framework, linking it to reciprocity and the respective levels of member openness. Such a move questions one of the foundational pillars of the multilateral trading system as established in 1947.
Lorenza Mola
The trade-and-labour linkage is generally discussed with respect of three dimensions: the relationship between goods trade and labour standards; the movement of labour in services trade; and the effects of trade liberalization on employment levels (here). Following the demise of the Havana Charter and the result of the clivage within WTO membership in the Singapore Ministerial Declaration, labour governance has been developed by the ILO parallelly, with some WTO Members then pointing to 1998-ILO core labour standards in their PTAs or unilateral trade tools, and the ILO recently endorsing the trade-and-labour linkage in its work program on integrating trade and decent work. Against this background, the paper maps and discusses how the cross-cutting issue of ‘Trade and Labour’ has been recently addressed in the WTO, by identifying a suitable period and by reviewing the following categories: black-letter mentions in WTO agreements, their normative scope and legal function; official documents adopted by WTO bodies and sub-divisions, and preparatory documents thereof, including trade policy reviews; other WTO documents such as conference speeches, studies, press releases; inter-institutional relations and joint initiatives, or participation to non-WTO initiatives and publications. The study will discuss whether recent practice within the Organization has been addressing the blind spot on the trade-and-labour nexus towards consideration and/or accommodation of labour concerns. It will set an evolutionary line within and across the above categories, along clivages in the membership, and in endogenous or exogenous dynamics. It will thus identify acknowledgeable themes, and legal or institutional settings for consideration of ‘Trade and labour’ concerns in the (legal foundations and) practice of the WTO.
Ilaria Espa
Climate clubs can contribute advancing international climate cooperation in areas that have struggled to achieve progress in other fora. By prioritizing climate policy coordination, technological collaboration, the development of standards and methodologies, and the advancement of discussions on interoperability between carbon markets segments via mutual recognition/equivalence of different types of credits, climate clubs can support sectoral decarbonization with minimal opposition. At the same time, carbon clubs might also serve as an avenue to coordinate approaches to the imposition of trade-related climate measures such as carbon border carbon adjustment mechanisms (CBAMs), as a form of sanctions towards non-members benefitting from persisting heterogeneity in carbon policies across jurisdictions– particularly to the extent that it implies wide differences in terms of (explicit) carbon prices borne by companies, raising in turn concerns around competitiveness and carbon leakage.
This article examines different models of climate clubs as new forms of voluntary arrangements at the intersection of the trade regime and climate governance with varying degrees of prospective institutionalization. It gives an overview of the main trade-relevant features potentially fitting within the existing definitions of climate clubs. It discusses challenges and opportunities raised by different configurations of climate clubs for the multilateral trading system, in particular for what concerns issues raised by CBAM-based climate clubs when scrutinized under the rules of the World Trade Organization (WTO). Finally, it assesses the potential of Article 6 of the Paris Agreement to serve as a legal foundation for climate clubs designed to promote carbon market interoperability and facilitate coordinated CBAM approaches, thereby enhancing prospects for WTO compatibility.
Jan Bohanes
The Reference Paper on Services Domestic Regulation (RPSDR - INF/SDR/2) is the result of the Joint Initiative on Services Domestic Regulation which was established in December 2017 by 59 WTO Members and was concluded in 2021. The resulting RPSDR was incorporated into the schedules of participating Members in 2024 and represents an important development in the governance of international trade in services.
Substantively, the RPSDR operationalizes a long-standing, but underdeveloped mandate on domestic regulation under Article VI of the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS). In a nutshell, the DRRP establishes disciplines to ensure that authorization requirements, licensing procedures, and technical standards affecting trade in services are imposed and administered in a transparent, impartial, and predictable manner. The various obligations under the DRRP can be grouped in three clusters, specifically, measures to foster transparency and effective stakeholder engagement mechanisms; providing certainty and predictability of authorization procedures; and promoting regulatory quality and facilitation. Key provisions include obligations to publish relevant measures in advance, provide reasonable opportunities for comment, process applications within specified timeframes, and ensure that regulatory requirements are not more burdensome than necessary to achieve legitimate policy objectives. Many provisions are formulated using flexible language, such as “to the extent possible/practicable”, that does not lend itself to “hard” enforcement via WTO dispute settlement procedures. However, this does not detract from the important contribution that these disciplines can make to both international and domestic good trade policy governance. For instance, the DRRP can serve as a blueprint for domestic regulatory reform. The substance of DRRP is also reflected in many regional trade agreements (RTA), including those in which developing countries participate that have so far not signed up to these disciplines at the WTO level.
Beyond its substantive content, the RPSDR carries important systemic implications as a plurilateral initiative within the multilateral trading system. Negotiated among a critical mass of WTO Members, incorporated into the participating Members’ services schedules of specific commitments, and extended on a most-favored-nation (MFN) basis, it exemplifies a flexible approach to rulemaking that circumvents the consensus constraints that have impeded multilateral negotiations in recent decades. The participating WTO Members have thus sought to contribute to the emerging architecture of “open plurilateralism,” whereby subsets of Members advance new disciplines that are, or at least can be, subsequently multilateralized through MFN application.
This “open plurilateralism” model has both advocates and critics. Advocates highlight the contribution of this model to incremental rule development by like-minded Members to respond to evolving economic realities, in particular given the growing importance of services and digital trade. Critics have raised concerns about inclusivity, fragmentation of the system, and the balance between efficiency and legitimacy in global trade governance. Some of these concerns were discussed in a rare arbitration procedure pursuant to Article XXI of the GATS between Australia and India. While this discussion among WTO Member governments was ultimately resolved for purposes of the RPSDR, the debate continues in the context of another significant plurilateral initiative, the so-called Investment Facilitation for Development Agreement (IFDA).
Carlo M. Cantore
In December 2024, after years of extensive negotiations, a subgroup of WTO Members announced the conclusion of the E-Commerce Agreement. The birth of the text was not easy, also due to major shifts in the negotiating positions of key participants such as the United States. The early life of the concluded text has not been easy either. The WTO Agreement, in fact, allows Members to add new plurilateral agreements to the WTO rulebook if they so decide “exclusively by consensus”. On two separate occasions already, the General Council could not reach consensus on the draft decision to add the E-Commerce Agreement to the existing WTO covered agreements, due to opposition by vocal opponents. At the Ministerial Conference held in Yaoundé in March 2026, 66 WTO Members signed a declaration on “interim arrangements” on the E-Commerce Agreement. In a nutshell, participants aim to complete the required domestic procedures for the acceptance of the agreement, aiming for the agreement entering into force at the earliest possible date. In parallel, participants will continue to seek a decision by consensus to incorporate the agreement into Annex IV of the WTO Agreement.
The article consists of two main parts. The first part examines the implications of these interim arrangements under international treaty law and WTO law. The second part assumes that objection by naysayers will persist even after the entry into force of the E-Commerce Agreement outside of the WTO. Accordingly, the article explores the use of the scheduling technique as a viable alternative to the E-Commerce Agreement’s incorporation in the WTO rulebook as a plurilateral agreement under Annex IV. The article suggests that the inclusion of the E-Commerce disciplines in the proponents’ GATT and GATS schedules is technically feasible and exposes , drawing also from recent developments in the area of services domestic regulation.
Carlo de Stefano
This contribution focuses on provisions in PTAs aimed at sustainability in relation to the environmental protection, the fight against climate change and the prevention of disasters. The analysis also addresses the practice of WTO informal groups and dialogues and non-WTO agreements, including commercial treaties recently negotiated and stipulated by the EU.
The World Trade Report 2022 was dedicated to climate change and international trade law. The Report submitted that leveraging trade to tackle climate change presents several developments and growth opportunities and will require significant policy actions for States to advance a just transition towards a low-carbon, inclusive and resilient future. The Report called for the enhancement of the WTO’s existing cooperation with international and regional organizations (e.g. the United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction – UNDRR), including in the areas of climate risk prevention, climate-induced disaster relief, transport decarbonization and climate finance. A key finding is that international trade can help support climate change strategies, such as prevention and reduction of, and preparedness for, climate risk, as well as recovery and rehabilitation from environmental disasters. In addition, trade can also contribute to strengthening food security during climate-induced supply-side disruptions.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has noted in 2022 that policies to open up trade can have a range of effects on GHG emissions, just as mitigation policies can influence trade flows among countries and identified the liberalisation of trade in environmental goods and services as measures that may both lower trade barriers and potentially bring about GHG emission reductions.
At the level of international law-making, States are progressively inserting provisions related to the fight against climate change and sustainability in general within the renegotiation of their existing trade agreements or in the stipulation of new treaties. Examples are found in: the EU-New Zealand Free Trade Agreement of 9 July 2023, entered into force 1 May 2024, in which Art 19.6 addresses climate change; the EU-Japan Economic Partnership Agreement of 17 July 2018, entered into force 1 February 2019, in which Art 16.4 emphasizes the Parties’ commitments to effectively implement the UNFCCC and the Paris Agreement; the EU-South Korea Free Trade Agreement of 15 October 2009, entered into force 13 December 2015, in Art 13.5(3) and Annex 13.
The research aims to test whether these developments are verified in the PTAs and related instrument that are mapped by the project, having regard to WTO law and practice.
Federico Ferri
In 2022 and 2023, the European Union concluded four Digital Partnerships with some aligned States: Japan, South Korea, Singapore, and Canada. With these instruments, the Union aimed at fostering on the international plane the main interests related to its digital transformation. Moreover, they represent a new attempt to lay the ground for the consolidation of the open strategic autonomy of the EU. However, the EU Digital Partnerships are not the only examples of this trend; on the contrary, they are part of a legal ecosystem which includes new thematic chapters in recent EU Free Trade Agreements as well as two Digital Trade Agreements with South Korea and Singapore (and the negotiations for an agreement of this kind between the EU and Canada have just been launched). With the WTO E-commerce Agreement in the background, it is believed that the legal nature, potential and placement of the EU Digital Partnerships should be investigated. Therefore, the present Chapter is structured as follows. After introducing the subject – also from a WTO perspective –, Section II illustrates the main aspects of the EU Digital Partnerships. Sections III and IV deal with the relationships between the four Digital Partnerships and, respectively, the latest EU approach on digital issues in Free Trade Agreements and the core features of the EU Digital Trade Agreements. Section V focuses on the legal added value – if any – that the EU institutional framework could bring to strengthening or recalibrating the abovementioned Digital Partnerships. Section VI concludes.
Susanna Villani
The relationship between trade and health within the WTO framework has long been addressed indirectly through existing agreements rather than through dedicated instruments. The TRIPS Agreement, the SPS Agreement, and the TBT Agreement all address health-related aspects of international trade. However, none of these agreements was specifically designed to govern the intersection of commercial rules and public health imperatives. The inadequacy of this framework became particularly evident during the course of the Covid-19 pandemic, which exposed the fragility of global medical supply chains and rekindled the debate over access to essential medicines and the flexibilities embedded in the TRIPS Agreement (2001 Doha Declaration). Consequently, a number of WTO members initiated the coordination of their positions outside the formal institutional structure of the organisation, thereby giving rise to informal coalitions with the objective of shaping the multilateral trade agenda on health-related issues. In this regard, the Ottawa Group, bringing together a like-minded subset of WTO members including Australia, Brazil, Canada, Chile, the European Union, Japan, Kenya, South Korea, Mexico, New Zealand, Norway, Singapore and Switzerland, agreed to put forward a proposal on a “Trade and Health” initiative for temporary and permanent actions of WTO Members. The group encouraged both temporary and permanent multilateral actions, including the elimination of tariffs on essential medical goods and the strengthening of supply chain resilience. Despite the absence of formal legal standing within the WTO and of a treaty basis, the Group has functioned as an informal plurilateral mechanism, thereby facilitating the incorporation of joint proposals into the WTO’s negotiating process, through communications submitted to the WTO Secretariat and the General Council. The outcomes of the 12th and 13th Ministerial Conferences, however, revealed the structural limits of this momentum: no binding instruments were adopted, attempts to extend the TRIPS waiver to diagnostics and therapeutics failed to reach consensus, and the WTO remains to date without a dedicated framework on trade and health.
Against this background, a tension emerges within the EU’s legal order. On the one hand, the EU has positioned itself as a champion of health-sensitive multilateralism, as reflected in its active participation in the Ottawa Group and in the objectives set out in the EU Global Health Strategy (2022) and the EU Pharmaceutical Strategy (2020). On the other hand, the proposed Critical Medicines Act (COM(2025) 102 final) echoes a markedly different rationality, premised on the paradigm of the strategic autonomy and the reduction of the Union’s dependency on third-country suppliers of essential medicines. These two orientations respond to distinct and potentially conflicting logics, and the EU’s bilateral trade agreements offer a privileged vantage point from which to assess which of the two is prevailing in practice.
The contribution seeks to address this tension through a comparative analysis of two EU trade agreements: the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement with Canada (CETA) and the recently concluded EU-India Free Trade Agreement (FTA), whose negotiations were concluded on 27 January 2026 but which has not yet been signed or entered into force. The CETA, which was concluded prior to the advent of the pandemic and the strategic autonomy turn, introduced TRIPS-plus provisions on pharmaceutical intellectual property that exceed WTO obligations, thus engendering restrictions on rather than facilitating access to generic medicines, notwithstanding Canada’s concurrent membership of the Ottawa Group. In contrast, the EU-India FTA - assessed here on the basis of the negotiated text - appears to be more balanced. While it does extend beyond the TRIPS framework, it also explicitly reaffirms the provisions of the Doha Declaration and preserves the parties’ right to use compulsory licensing flexibilities. The central argument is to assess whether the bilateral agreements examined reveal a coherent strategic choice or an unresolved legal tension. This raises broader questions about the capacity of EU trade policy to serve simultaneously as an instrument of commercial interest, strategic autonomy, and global health equity, and about the legal instruments available to ensure that these objectives are pursued in a mutually reinforcing rather than contradictory manner.
FANG Meng Mandy
Green subsidies that differentiate within the same clean energy technology group based on products’ processes and production methods (PPMs), conditioning eligibility on meeting predefined sustainability standards, have emerged in recent years. This raises critical questions about whether the World Trade Organization (WTO) can accommodate such next-generation green subsidies, testing the multilateral trading system's ability to enable the clean energy transition. Yet examples like the United Kingdom’s Electric Car Grant and France’s Ecological Bonus Scheme highlight the vulnerability of PPM-based green subsidies to challenges under the WTO Agreement on Subsidies and Countervailing Measures (ASCM). Even in the absence of origin-specific discrimination, these subsidies may struggle to withstand WTO scrutiny.
Against this backdrop, this article examines the feasibility of reforming ASCM rules to address the pressing need to transition from a fossil-fuel-based economy. Rather than pursuing a multilateral revision of existing subsidy disciplines, a plurilateral initiative offers greater feasibility. It should target major clean energy-producing and deploying countries, such as the European Union, China, the United States, Japan, and others. The focus of the plurilateral reform is to adopt a carefully calibrated balancing approach tailored to the nuanced design and implementation of this new generation of green subsidies. This reform would enable members to deploy these subsidies without undue constraint, while strengthening the WTO’s capacity to align trade liberalization with the imperatives of the green transition.
Niccolò Lanzoni
The presentations examines the ongoing shift in international investment law from a traditional focus on investment protection and liberalisation toward a facilitation-oriented regulatory paradigm. While international investment agreements have historically prioritised investor protection standards and dispute settlement mechanisms, recent developments suggest an emerging alternative approach centred on transparency, administrative efficiency, regulatory cooperation, and sustainable development objectives.
Against this background, the presentation analyses three key contemporary instruments: the WTO Agreement on Investment Facilitation for Development (IFD Agreement) and the EU-Angola and EU-Ecuador Sustainable Investment Facilitation Agreements (SIFAs). Although operating at different levels of governance - multilateral and bilateral respectively – these instruments deliberately exclude market access commitments, substantive investment protection standards like FET and FPS, and investor–State dispute settlement. Instead, they advance a procedural and State-driven model of investment governance.
The presentation argues that, while the WTO IFD Agreement reflects a cautious integration of sustainability considerations, the EU SIFAs represent a more advanced and explicit attempt to align investment facilitation with sustainable development objectives. More broadly, the analysis situates investment facilitation within current debates on the reform of international investment law, suggesting that facilitation may increasingly function not merely as a complement, but as a potential alternative to protection-centred models of investment governance.
Federico Siscaro
The governance of international trade is increasingly shaped by a context of institutional fragmentation, geopolitical tensions, and growing skepticism toward traditional forms of multilateral cooperation. Within the World Trade Organization (WTO), the paralysis of the negotiating function and the broader crisis of multilateralism have stimulated the emergence of alternative forms of cooperation, including informal plurilateral initiatives that operate alongside the organization’s formal structures. Among these, the Fossil Fuel Subsidy Reform (FFSR) Initiative represents a particularly significant development at the intersection of trade governance and global climate policy.
This article examines the emergence, evolution, and institutional significance of the WTO FFSR Initiative, which was launched through a ministerial statement by a group of WTO members in 2021 and subsequently developed into an open-ended platform for dialogue on fossil fuel subsidy reform. The initiative seeks to address the trade distortions, environmental impacts, and investment disincentives associated with fossil fuel subsidies, while contributing to broader international commitments related to sustainable development and climate mitigation. Through successive ministerial statements, work programmes, and thematic discussions, the initiative has gradually established a forum within the WTO for transparency, knowledge-sharing, and policy coordination on a politically sensitive issue that has long proven difficult to address through the organization’s formal negotiating machinery.
The article argues that the FFSR Initiative is best understood as an example of informal plurilateralism embedded within the multilateral trading system. Rather than representing a departure from multilateralism, the initiative illustrates how flexible and voluntary forms of cooperation can function as adaptive mechanisms within a multilateral institution facing structural constraints. By creating a platform for dialogue that remains institutionally anchored in the WTO and open to all members, the FFSR Initiative seeks to preserve multilateral deliberation while allowing coalitions of willing actors to advance discussions on complex regulatory issues.
More broadly, the initiative sheds light on the evolving governance dynamics of the WTO in an era of fragmentation. As formal negotiations become increasingly difficult, informal platforms such as the FFSR Initiative may play a crucial role in sustaining multilateral engagement, fostering transparency, and preparing the ground for future normative developments. While such mechanisms raise important questions concerning inclusiveness, legitimacy, and effectiveness, they may also represent an important strategy for maintaining the relevance of the WTO as a central forum for global trade governance in a rapidly changing international order.
The article proceeds as follows. The first section situates fossil fuel subsidies within the broader framework of international trade governance, highlighting why these measures are increasingly regarded as a matter of concern for the multilateral trading system, particularly in light of their potential trade-distorting effects and their interaction with global climate objectives. The second section reconstructs the origins of the FFSR Initiative within the WTO, tracing its emergence from the initial ministerial statement adopted by a group of sponsoring members to its gradual consolidation as a platform for structured dialogue and cooperation. The third section analyses the institutional outputs generated by the initiative, including ministerial declarations, work programmes, thematic discussions, and knowledge-sharing activities, in order to assess their legal and political significance within the WTO framework. Building on this empirical reconstruction, the fourth section develops the article’s central argument by conceptualizing the FFSR Initiative as a form of informal plurilateralism embedded within the multilateral system. The fifth section then situates this development within the broader debate on the crisis and transformation of multilateral trade governance, exploring how informal initiatives may contribute to the adaptive resilience of the WTO. The final section reflects on the opportunities and limitations of such mechanisms, considering their implications for inclusiveness, legitimacy, and the future evolution of the multilateral trading system.
Giulia Bortino
The Informal Group labelled “Small, Vulnerable Economies” (SVEs) has been present on the agenda of the WTO since 2001,with the adoption of the Ministerial Declaration in Doha. Paragraph 35 of the latter mandates the establishment of a work programme in order to investigate trade-issues and responses in order to reach the full integration of SVEs in the multilateral trading system. Since then, the Committee on Trade and Development (CTD) has kept updating the work programme and holding meetings on the subject. Additionally, paragraph 35 mandates that this objective ought to be pursued without establishing a new sub-category of WTO Members.
This work will address the origin and development of the SVEs as an informal negotiating group in the WTO, and the central focus of the examination will deal with the topical challenges faced by SVEs and brought in the fore of WTO, what role can play the latter and to what extent foreseeable measures can have a positive impact on trade for SVEs. Special attention will be devoted to the latest proposals, recommendations and outcome of MC14. In fact, the first draft decision for MC14 in Yaoundé was endorsed on February 17 and it concerns SVEs in international trade. Moreover, the analysis will be conducted taking into consideration the current crisis of multilateralism, thus dedicating special attention to the alternative cooperation forms that have emerged: Plurilateral agreements and initiatives. Currently, the group consist of 32 countries, mainly landlocked and island nations. Although they share some qualities of other Member States groups, such as the developing states or the Least Developed Countries (LDCs), they do distinguish themselves for some peculiarities related to their size and vulnerability. These, which are going to be presented and analysed, prevent SVEs from accessing global trade and, therefore, to benefit from it. For this reason, the Committee on Trade and Development is mandated to consider SVEs requests and proposals.
The strategy put in place by the informal group is twofold, on the one hand it consists on submitting proposals and requests aimed at easing their position, on the other, they advocate for their cause in standing bodies, in order to obtain derogation or special treatments under existing agreements. This scheme has proved successful to the extent that it allowed SVEs to obtain some relevant achievements, such as the use of regional bodies to fulfil the notification obligations and to enjoy an extension for export subsidies programmes. However, negotiations are still ongoing on a number of different portfolios. The draft decision for MC14 has a special focus on the inclusion of SVEs into global digital trade, and standing items on the recent ministerial declarations address trade facilitation, attraction of investments, e-commerce and reliable supply chains. Another relevant factor considered in more recent years is climate change and its consequences on trade. In fact, SVEs are particularly vulnerable to climate change and natural disasters – especially small islands states.
Davide Grespan
Since its inception in 2020, the Multi-Party Interim Arbitration Arrangement (MPIA) has experienced a gradual yet steady increase in participation. With the accession of Barbados, Liechtenstein, and Moldova shortly before the 14th Ministerial Conference in Yaoundé, Cameroon, the MPIA now comprises 61 participating Members of the World Trade Organization (WTO), collectively accounting for approximately 60% of global trade.
This article first provides a concise overview of the origins of the MPIA and subsequently examines its legal nature, which is frequently—albeit inaccurately—characterized as a plurilateral agreement. It then analyses recent developments, including the partial re-composition of the pool of arbitrators, appeal arbitration proceedings conducted among MPIA participants, and the statement issued during the 14th Ministerial Conference concerning the MPIA’s role in supporting the multilateral rules-based trading system. In addition, the article considers the function of the MPIA within the broader context of interim arrangements relating to the electronic commerce agreement.
The article concludes that an arrangement originally conceived as a provisional, stopgap response to the paralysis of the Appellate Body has demonstrated a notable degree of durability. Moreover, it has shown an ability not only to persist over several years but also to expand both its membership and the scope of disputes it is capable of addressing.