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Introduction National regulatory autonomy and the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement Tania Voon -- Coping with proliferating preferential rules of origin and the TPP's role in their harmonisation Won-Mog Choi -- The Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement and development Meredith Kolsky Lewis -- The TPP as a case study of changing dynamics for international intellectual property negotiations Kimberlee Weatherall -- Plain packaging for the Pacific Rim : tobacco control and the trans-Pacific partnership Matthew Rimmer -- Agriculture and the trans-Pacific partnership negotiations Deborah Elms -- Services in the TPP : a case study of telecommunications Danny Kotlowitz and Tania Voon -- State-state dispute settlement under the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement Andrew D Mitchell and James Munro -- Investor-state dispute settlement under the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement Leon E Trakman -- The Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement, the environment and climate change Joshua P Meltzer -- The Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement and regulatory coherence Rodrigo Polanco

Debate about trade and culture has a long history, but the application of WTO rules to cultural products such as films, radio, and books remains one of the most divisive issues in the organization. After assessing the economic and social arguments for treating cultural products differently from things like steel or wheat, this 2007 book explains how the vastly different views of WTO members in earlier negotiations led to an outcome that is disappointing for all. It goes on to provide a comprehensive evaluation of possible solutions, including evolution of the law through WTO dispute settlement, an agreement outside the WTO, and reforms to improve the balance between trade liberalization and cultural policy objectives

This dispute, brought by Ukraine against Russia, provides the first discussion in a World Trade Organization (WTO) Panel or Appellate Body Report of the security exception in Article XXI of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade 1994 (GATT). Unusually for a WTO dispute, the Panel (chaired by former WTO Appellate Body Member Georges Abi-Saab) found that Russia had not acted inconsistently with any of the claimed obligations under the GATT or Russia's Accession Protocol. Central to that conclusion was the Panel's understanding of the GATT security exception and the circumstances surrounding the imposition of the challenged measures, which related to trade in transit by road and rail through Russian territory. The Panel found that, since 2014, an emergency in international relations existed between Russia and Ukraine within the meaning of GATT Article XXI(b)(iii) and that the challenged measures fell within this exception. If the exception had not applied, according to the Panel, Ukraine would have established a prima facie case of violation of the provisions on freedom of transit in GATT Article V:2 and equivalent provisions in Russia's Accession Protocol. The decision, which neither party chose to appeal, has significant implications for other disputes in which the security exception has been invoked.

The WTO general exceptions are crucial provisions that recognize that in
some circumstances non-trade objectives will trump trade liberalization.
That recognition flows from the fact that trade liberalization per se is not
the purpose of the WTO; rather, trade liberalization is a means to achieve
other objectives as specified in the preamble to the Marrakesh Agreement
Establishing the World Trade Organization, such as raising standards of
living and ensuring full employment. The predominant view is that the
general exceptions are extremely difficult to satisfy. Indeed, I am aware of
only three instances in which a respondent has successfully invoked GATT
Article XX; of these, two are compliance proceedings, and one of those is
under appeal. However, challenged measures typically fail to satisfy the
requirements of the Article XX chapeau because
they are discriminatory, and removing that discrimination provides a means
of benefiting from the exception.