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The Digital Economy Partnership Agreement (DEPA) has garnered significant traction in the international trade law and policy discourse. It is the first of its kind - a monothematic trade agreement that focuses exclusively on addressing issues that affect trade in the global digital economy. This study examines the influence of preferential trade agreements (PTAs) on different modules of the DEPA and their provisions. It analyses India's position on the DEPA and its provisions to understand its policy stance to join the DEPA. The findings show that digital trade chapters of PTAs have a significant influence on the modules of DEPA but vary in several aspects. It further underscores based on interviews with policymakers, policy experts, think tanks, and industry associations that India is unlikely to join the DEPA given its evolving digital regulatory framework, fragmented perspectives, and cautious approach to digital trade negotiations in free trade agreements.
 

In recent years, the development of the world economy and world finance has been characterized by such concepts as "deglobalization," "regionalization," and "politicization," as climatic, structural, and geopolitical transformations have had a destructive impact on international financial relations that mediate the movement of international liquidity between countries. Regulatory impulses for the activation of certain mechanisms for stimulating international financial relations are set by the leading consultative forums of the emerging multipolar world, such as the G20 and the BRICS, as well as classical multilateral institutions - the IMF and the World Bank Group. Meanwhile, productive interaction between countries at G20 venues is extremely complicated by the lack of consensus on a wide range of pressing issues - from financing measures to mitigate the effects of climate change in developing countries to reforming the IMF and WTO. The BRICS countries are taking cautious steps towards implementing collective initiatives in the international financial sphere, which is connected with the still very serious dependence on the markets and financial infrastructure of the most developed Western countries and the fear of becoming dependent on a new reserve currency. In the Bretton Woods institutions, the G7 countries account for two-fifths of the votes, which effectively allows them to block any decisions taken in favor of developing countries. Currently, new mechanisms of international financial relations are being formed, based on the use of digital financial technologies to service foreign economic activity. At the same time, the United States, as the world leader in cryptocurrency mining, demonstrates a rather passive attitude towards the need to introduce its own digital currency, striving not so much to implement the latest digital financial technologies, but to maintain control over the establishment of global rules of the game in the financial markets. Thus, crisis ofglobalization could be attributed to the crisis in international financial relations due to the diversity of interests between the bloc of developed countries centered in the United States and the bloc of developing countries centered in China. With ever-increasing production volumes, the group of fastest- growing countries continues to be discriminated against when it comes to the creation and distribution of international liquidity, which is invariably denominated predominantly in US domestic currency. In the context of global geopolitical confrontation, Russia's role in international financial relations is also changing. Today, Russia's access to the global banking system, opportunities to replenish international liquidity through swap lines of central banks, and the use of credit mechanisms of leading international financial organizations are blocked. Nevertheless, Russia continues to fulfill its financial obligations within the G20, the IMF, the World Bank Group and BRICS financial institutions. This position is becoming increasingly vulnerable and costly given the seizure of Russian foreign assets and threats of their confiscation, as well as the almost complete suspension of the inflow of foreign capital into the Russian Federation in the context of growing secondary sanctions, including those with respect to new international financial mechanisms.
 

In this essay, the author highlights Dr Frieder Roessler's contribution to the conceptualization of the multilateral trading system in respect of domestic policies. He reflects on the need to reconsider the system's traditional approach towards 'harmonization' of domestic policies in the light of current global challenges, such as the fight against global warming and the development of coordinated domestic policies in the digital field.
 

Businesses from the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) aiming for a global reach must navigate through different levels of rule of law-with different degrees of strength-to access foreign markets. The rule of law is essential from a business perspective as it reduces the costs of transactions on the global market. However, the paper aims to demonstrate that there are transaction costs due to the frictions between the rules of law in the multilevel system, which the MENA business must take into consideration in its search for contract partners and new markets. The focus is on the overall rule of law components of the World Trade Organization, the European Neighbourhood Policies, and the Chinese Belt and Road Initiative and their interaction.
 

This study aims to explore the relationship between macroeconomic factors and the decision to file an anti-dumping (AD) initiation, focusing on the post-WTO period from 1995 to 2022 for both reporting and targeted countries. We analyze the 20 most frequent users of the AD mechanism and the 20 most frequently targeted countries through econometric analysis to determine how gross domestic product (GDP) volume, GDP growth rate, and merchandise trade balance (MTB) influence the frequency of AD initiations. Our findings indicate that at least half of the sampled countries exhibit a significant correlation between AD filings and at least one of the macroeconomic variables examined. In many cases, GDP volume and MTB not only affect a country's decision to initiate an AD investigation but also influence how often it becomes a target of such measures. Although the results are fragmented across different economies, they highlight the role of the macroeconomic environment in shaping the decision to resort to AD mechanisms. By adopting a dual perspective, considering both reporting and targeted countries, and incorporating MTB as a key variable, this research extends beyond previous studies to provide deeper insights into the macroeconomic determinants of AD measures. These findings suggest that macroeconomic conditions play a crucial role in shaping trade defense policies, highlighting the need for policymakers to consider broader economic trends when formulating AD regulations.
 

We combine econometric estimation with quantitative modeling to generate projections on the trade, GDP, and emissions effects of a potential trade liberalization agreement involving energy-related environmental goods (EREGs) and environmentally preferable products (EPPs). Trade liberalization can contribute to reduced emissions in two ways in our projections: (i) a reduction of import prices of goods promoting energy efficiency; and (ii) a reduction in the costs of intermediate and capital goods used in the production of electricity from renewable-energy sources. Four scenarios are evaluated, combining reductions in tariffs and non-tariff measures (NTMs) for EREGs and EPPs. Using simulations with the WTO Global Trade Model we find (i) an increase in exports of EREGs and EPPs both at the global level and in most regions; (ii) a modest increase in GDP in all regions because of falling tariffs, NTMs, and increased energy efficiency; and (iii) a modest reduction in global emissions of about 0.6%. The dominant channel is energy efficiency, whereas the costs of EREGs as intermediates in renewable energy production play a minor role, with or without end-use control.
 

The Third World Approaches to International Law (TWAIL) debate international economic inequality. However, this problem cannot be completely resolved without analyzing its racial background. Critical Race Theory (TCR), as a progressive intellectual movement, provides useful tools that enrich the debate by reviewing the experiences of racial minorities around the world. This essay will illustrate how the TWAIL and TCR can work together to address the neocolonial phenomenon from a racial perspective within international law. For this purpose, the lack of regulation of the intellectual property rights of indigenous communities at the international level will be studied under a regulation that follows their worldview in the context of the World Trade Organization (WTO); in particular, in the Agreement on Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights related to Trade (TRIPS). Likewise, it will show how these legal institutions perpetuate an unequal racist neocolonial discourse created by Western powers under the dominant liberal doctrine of international intellectual property law, opposing the positioning of indigenous collective intellectual property as a legal counternarrative in international law.
 

Vietnam is one of the world's leading rice exporters and West African countries are potential markets for Vietnam's rice exports. However, geographical barriers have always been considered an important factor hindering Vietnam's rice exports to West Africa. Applying the gravity model with the PPML estimation technique, the study shed light on the impact of geographical distance on Vietnam's rice exports to West Africa during 2001-2021. The estimated results confirm that geographical distance negatively impacts rice exports, but that the level of impact is significantly mitigated if economic factors are reinforced. The results also point out that becoming a World Trade Organization (WTO) member promotes Vietnam's rice exports to West Africa. This implies that Vietnamese rice exporters and policymakers should focus on economic factors to promote rice exports to West Africa. In addition, the country should consider establishing free trade agreements with West African countries.
 

The Cox duration model serves as the basis for more complex duration models like competing risks, repeated events, and multistate models. These models make a number of assumptions, many of which can be assessed empirically, sometimes for substantive ends. We use Monte Carlo simulations to show the order in which practitioners assess these assumptions can impact the model's final specification, and ultimately, can produce misleading inferences. We focus on three assumptions regarding model specification decisions: proportional hazards (PH), stratified baseline hazards, and stratum-specific covariate effects. Our results suggest checking the PH assumption before checking for stratum-specific covariate effects tends to produce the correct final specification most frequently. We reexamine a recent study of the timing of GATT/WTO applications to illustrate our points.
 

The role of various institutions and countries in the transformation of the world order in East Asia during the period of the late twentieth century through the teens of the twentieth century is examined. It is noted that at the end of the 20th century, the American model of the regionalization process, carried out within the framework of APEC, dominated. However, due to changes in the US foreign policy doctrine and the Asian economic crisis of 1997-1998, APEC, in the early 2000s, began to give way to ASEAN+, in which Japan occupied the leading position. Since the mid-2000s, China has been becoming stronger thanks to successful economic reforms and the use of various integration platforms. As a result, China began to promote its own model of globalization and regionalization in the region, which challenged the American order not only in East Asia, but also in the Asia-Pacific region. In the late 2000s, Washington sought to regain lost positions in the region by promoting the Trans-Pacific Partnership integration project, which intensified the struggle between the leading powers for dominance in the region. As a result, in the 2010s, ASEAN+ and Japan began developing the RCEP project, while China began to promote the Belt and Road international cooperation organization. As a result of the transformation of international relations caused by the movement of the world from unipolar to multipolar, there has been a change in the transformation of the geopolitical situation in East Asia. The United States returned to "traditional" methods of confrontation, increasing tension in the region and the world.