The American Law Institute has sought since 2001 to assist the development of coherent and economically rational legal principles governing world trade. We have published three volumes analyzing recent decisions by the World Trade Organization. The chapters analyzing decisions, each the cooperative work of an economist and a lawyer, point the way to interpretations of the relevant treaty that would supply predictability and fairness valuable to nations and to economic actors.

Having focused on specific decisions by the WTO, we have now begun an effort to craft general principles governing this vital area at the intersection of law and economics. Engaged in our work are leading scholars of the field. As is always our practice, their drafts will receive constructive criticism from other engaged experts. Meanwhile, three distinguished professors have prepared this volume, a history of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade that supplies important background information for understanding where trade policy and trade law are today. Some aspects of the subject are dry, but this is also a riveting account of growing international interdependency and cooperation as World War II ended and of remarkable personalities, including the great John Maynard Keynes.

The large American Law Institute effort on trade law was conceived and is led by Professor Henrik Horn of the University of Stockholm and Professor Petros Mavroidis of Neuchatel University in Switzerland and Columbia University in New York.