A ‘smart city’ is a buzz term and concept. The ‘smart city’ has mainly been discussed in the scholarly literature on urban planning, architecture, and geography. While the ‘smart city’ has been under-analyzed in international trade law, the term ‘smart city’ is commonly used in Asian trade policies. The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) established the ‘ASEAN Smart Cities Network’ and the ‘smart city’ is now an important market opportunity for exporting smart technologies and services to ASEAN. Against this backdrop, this article addresses how smart cities can be regulated and governed by international trade law. The trade law perspective facilitates a broader understanding of smart city governance, which includes under-explored ‘global’ regulatory dimensions concerning the interaction between local governments and foreign firms. This article selects three relevant trade areas for discussions: (1) Internet of Things in the context of trade in goods and services; (2) international standard-setting activities; and (3) data governance. It further considers what kinds of regulatory issues international smart city projects can add to the current digital trade discourse. Drawing on the smart city literature, the article points out additional problems concerning security and privacy that have not yet been acknowledged in digital trade.

China has initiated three antidumping (AD) investigations against US feed products since 2010, despite clear mutual benefits from such exports from the US to China. This article provides a close examination of these investigations, what prompted them, how they were resolved, and the costs they imposed on importers and exporters. The article also describes the political economy around these investigations and how China's antidumping laws provide it with flexibility to manage these investigations. The article concludes that this flexibility makes China well-positioned to continue using AD investigations against some trade partners in the future, particularly if AD use continues to rise globally.

The global trading system has reached an inflection point. The future of the liberalized, rules-based global world order is in doubt as countries that have for decades preached and practiced policies, which can loosely be defined as embodying the ‘Washington Consensus’, have started to backtrack. Free and fair trade is no longer the mantra as governments embrace industrial policy, protectionism, national security, risk management, and managed trade. Perhaps the most surprising adherent of the reversal is the US, whose embrace of what has been termed a ‘modern American industrial strategy’ runs counter to traditional American views and norms. While David Ricardo's theory of comparative advantage still holds true, it has certainly fallen out of fashion. Where it leads remains unknown – caveat emptor. This article analyses President Joe Biden's industrial policy and its implications as well as shifts that have occurred as a result of the pandemic, geopolitical competition, and other recent global events.

Bryan Mercurio's brief accurately describes the inflection point of the global trading system as world governments retreat from free and fair trade. Chief among them is the United States, whose recent reversal is sending shockwaves throughout the rules-based economic world order. The United States' conflation of trade policy vis-à-vis China and national security, as well as the use of trade policy to garner political support from voters disenfranchised by the global trading system, have given way to industrial subsidies and protectionist tendencies. This article aims to build upon Mercurio's points and identify the underlying causes and long-term consequences of the current US direction. In addition, this piece differs from Dr Mercurio's assertions on three critical aspects of today's trade landscape. Firstly, industrial policy and economic security measures were first undertaken by China, and the United States and allied nations only followed suit. Secondly, the current US economic policy regarding China is severely constrained by today's political landscape, and the Biden administration's approach is moderate given these confines. Lastly, despite challenges, low-income countries can gain from the diversification movement as production shifts away from China.

This paper develops the concept of transience of (in)formality to refer to the intersection of formal and informal negotiating procedures in the WTO decision-making system. It argues that both formal and informal negotiating processes are essential for delivering negotiating outcomes in the WTO. Particularly, the article assesses how informal negotiating practices emerge within the WTO formal framework and align with it. The analysis highlights how negotiating practices (re)shape existing norms, both formal and informal, adapting the WTO to overcome challenges and meet current needs. It also disputes legal formalistic perspectives that permeate trade literature and offer limited accounts of Members' agency in the WTO. The paper uses the Joint Initiatives as a case study to illustrate the convergence between formality and informality and a possible way ahead for the WTO negotiations. By broadening the understanding of law-making, it contributes to the discussion on WTO reform. It provides alternatives that reflect the reality of WTO negotiations and underlines the institution's relevance.

The EU has introduced a Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM), which extends its carbon prices to imported products in some sectors. Increasingly considered by other countries, such border carbon adjustments (BCAs) are facing a global backlash against the lack of consideration of the adverse impacts on developing countries and particularly, least developed countries (LDCs). This article first argues that small overall import volumes support the conclusion that exempting or lessening BCA requirements from LDCs would not undermine developed countries' climate-related objectives in practical terms. An economic analysis of EU and UK trade in relation to a CBAM supports this assertion. However, legally, such an exemption or development-based preferential treatment is difficult under existing multilateral trade rules and jurisprudence, owing to the legal characterization and objectives of BCAs; their interaction with existing special and differential treatment (SDT) provisions; and complexity of available policy options. We thus highlight the gap between normative aims of SDT provisions to support development, and current WTO law and jurisprudence which expose WTO members providing preferential treatment to allegations of discrimination. With increasing unilateral climate action, an inability to integrate SDT more meaningfully into WTO non-discrimination frameworks risks further weakening of international cooperation on climate and trade.

The TPP Agreement – now CPTPP (Comprehensive and Progressive Trans Pacific Partnership Agreement) – is, by any measure, a central part of the emerging global trade policy framework. To the author's surprise, it survived the decision of the United States to withdraw after USTR Mike Froman had signed the Agreement in Auckland 2015 on behalf of the US. Today, it incorporates 12 economies including leading G20 economies such as Japan, Mexico, Canada, Australia, and the UK, its most recent entrant. Six other economies, including most importantly, China, the world's second largest economy, are now applying for membership. What began between Singapore and New Zealand – a conscious strategic decision on their part to try to incentivize precisely this process of Asia-Pacific regional integration in 1999 – is now clearly a major part of the global geopolitical chessboard.