International Economic Dispute Settlement and Digital Trade in Services – Useful Multilateral Principles for the Emerging Global Regulatory Landscape?

doi:10.1017/9781108966122.013

12 - International Economic Dispute Settlement and Digital Trade in Services – Useful Multilateral Principles for the Emerging Global Regulatory Landscape?

from Part III - New Issue Areas and Dispute Settlement

Published online by Cambridge University Press: 07 August 2021

Philippe Lionnet

Edited by

Manfred Elsig ,

Rodrigo Polanco and

Peter van den Bossche

Show author details

Manfred Elsig: Affiliation:
Universität Bern, Switzerland
Rodrigo Polanco: Affiliation:
Universität Bern, Switzerland
Peter van den Bossche: Affiliation:
Universität Bern, Switzerland

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Summary

That multilateralism is at risk has become a truism underlying global politics and, more specifically, the international regulation of trade. Besides the ongoing escalation of measures impeding international trade between trading nations, a decisive and well-recognized risk to economic multilateralism as we know it also stems from the growing emergence of plurilateral regulation formats. Governments are seeking to deepen international regulation in areas where they find common interests – and such progress has proven to be very difficult to achieve in large negotiation formats after the successful conclusion of the WTO Uruguay Round. The most disputed issues fall in an area of international trade law, which is directly concerned with state sovereignty and disciplines on – in the language of the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) – domestic regulation. The rules that are decided and implemented in jurisdictions that regulate economic activities are highly normative political decisions and notoriously tricky to assess with regards to their impact on cross-border commercial exchanges.

Type: Chapter
Information: International Economic Dispute Settlement
Demise or Transformation?
, pp. 323 - 349

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108966122.013 [Opens in a new window]

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Print publication year: 2021

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