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Abstract: Reform and extension of world trade law have stalled because of the WTO's consensus rule. The sense of crisis has been exacerbated by the US refusal to approve new members to the WTO Appellate Body, preventing settlement of disputes arising from current world trade law, and by the United States dropping out of the most promising plurilateral approach to extending world trade law. By unilaterally increasing tariffs, the Trump administration further indicated the US disregard for world trade law. After January 2021, President Biden quickly made clear that he would not reverse the US position on the WTO, the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP), or recent tariff increases. Other countries' responses to the blow to enforcing and extending world trade law were hampered by the COVID-19 pandemic that curtailed face-to-face meetings in 2020 and 2021, but the dust began clearing in 2023. In June 2023, the UK became the first new member of the CPTPP; China and Taiwan are next in the queue for accession. In 2023, Japan became the 53rd signatory of the Multi-Party Interim Appeal Arbitration Arrangement (MPIA), whose signatories recognize binding arbitration decisions on WTO rulings; the United States rejects the MPIA. The article ends by drawing conclusions about the future of the world trade system and the US response to initiatives supported by its major allies and other major trading nations.

AbstractA striking feature of Havrylyshyn's book present at the transition is the space and emphasis that he gives to elites. He contrasts the new rich in Central European Big Bang countries, who formed a capitalist class that supported further reforms and consolidation of the new economic system, with the new rich in countries with gradual reforms or where an early Big Bang was aborted and old communist-era elites were able to short-circuit the reform process. This paper argues that, although Havrylyshyn's focus on the oligarchs of Russia and Ukraine may be justified by their status as the two largest Soviet successor states, they were not typical of the non-Baltic former Soviet republics. In the Central Asian countries and Azerbaijan, extreme wealth has become concentrated in the presidential families and their associates. This pattern has had specific and pernicious consequences.

Uzbekistan is actively pushing to achieve WTO membership after what will have been the longest accession negotiations ever. Uzbekistan's application to join the WTO dates from December 1994 but became dormant in the 2000s while still at a fairly early stage. After President Karimov died in August 2016, the process was reactivated by his successor, President Shavkat Mirziyoyev. The lengthy break was related to Karimov's inward-looking and interventionist economic development strategy and the revival after 2016 is associated with Mirziyoyev's more outward-oriented strategy. This paper analyses the evolution of Uzbekistan's application and the evolution of the WTO over this period. The answer to the question of whether Uzbekistan will, or should, join the WTO depends on the commitment to economic reform. If the government is serious about replacing dependence on resource exports by a more diversified competitive economy, then Uzbekistan will achieve and benefit from WTO membership. If the economy remains resistant to fundamental reform, then accession will be difficult and of little value if it happens.

Uzbekistan is actively pushing to achieve WTO membership after what will have been the longest accession negotiations ever. Uzbekistan's application to join the WTO dates from December 1994 but became dormant in the 2000s while still at a fairly early stage. After President Karimov died in August 2016, the process was reactivated by his successor, President Shavkat Mirziyoyev. The lengthy break was related to Karimov's inward-looking and interventionist economic development strategy and the revival after 2016 is associated with Mirziyoyev's more outward-oriented strategy. This paper analyses the evolution of Uzbekistan's application and the evolution of the WTO over this period. The answer to the question of whether Uzbekistan will, or should, join the WTO depends on the commitment to economic reform. If the government is serious about replacing dependence on resource exports by a more diversified competitive economy, then Uzbekistan will achieve and benefit from WTO membership. If the economy remains resistant to fundamental reform, then accession will be difficult and of little value if it happens.

AbstractIn the 1980s and 1990s, Australia moved from a protectionist trade policy to very open trade policies. This paper analyses the evolution of these policies in the twenty‐first century: first signing bilateral agreements in the 2000s and then participating in negotiation of mega‐regional agreements (TPP/CPTPP and RCEP). To some extent these shifts have reflected stasis in the World Trade Organisation (WTO) and its inability to make agreements on new areas. Underlying drivers of Australia's beyond‐WTO trade agreements have been the fragmentation of trade along global value chains and the emergence of new trade technologies associated with the spread of the internet.