1 - Introduction

Summary

Developing economies have been able to make use of the liberal trade and investment regime to support their development strategies without having to adopt the full gamut of neoliberal prescriptions. The status quo is, in many ways, an agreement to disagree, made up of a combination of effective resistance to new rules, de jure and de facto derogations, and strategic noncompliance. The post-2008 period, however, called this truce into question. Transformations of the relationship between development and international economic law stem from the confluence of domestic shifts regarding development economics theory and practice on one hand, and global shifts with respect to the international institutions of economic governance on the other hand.