The current editorial team consists of:

 

• Wolfgang Alschner, Associate Professor of Law at the University of Ottawa.
• Manfred Elsig, Professor of International Relations at the University of Bern and Deputy Managing Director of the World Trade Institute.
• Joseph Francois, Professor of International Economics at the University of Bern and Managing Director of the World Trade Institute.
• Miriam Manchin, Associate Professor of International Economics at Politecnico de Milano.

Vision Statement by Editors:

The incoming editors wish to thank previous Editor Alan Winters for his outstanding work with the journal. We are aware that the current global landscape is challenging for the study of global trade governance. Crises of multilateralism and a more power-based approach to preferential trade agreements, geopolitical tensions, growing nationalism and populism and a new pandemic are all stress testing the system. In these times, scholarly contributions are more important than ever. Following in the footsteps of Alan, we aim to continue to publish state-of-the art research in the respective fields of the journal. We welcome both theoretical and empirical contributions to provide insights into the world trading system writ large. We also encourage historical work in economics, law and international relations.

Mission Statement:

The mission of the World Trade Review is to provide a platform for rigorous, high quality scholarship that addresses salient questions regarding the functioning of the multilateral trading system with aspects related to economics, international law, or political science. The editorial board welcomes contributions that are rigorous in their analysis and have an elaborate discussion on the policy related impact. The journal is peer reviewed and editors aim for a good match between paper and reviewers, resulting in referee reports that are useful to authors to improve their work. We aim for a short turnaround of papers with feedback within 3 to 6 months. For those papers that are unsuited for the journal, the editorial board has a desk rejection procedure, with a quick decision within 2 to 4 weeks after submission in the interest of authors. The editorial board encourages high-quality contributions from all parts of the world. Given the wide readership of the journal in academia and beyond, a publication in WTR guarantees high visibility and impact. A demonstration of impact is increasingly desirable in the profile of future academics, which is where we want to offer a platform for those eager to demonstrate their ability to go beyond the technical assessments and point out the policy implications of their work.   

 

Meet the Editors:

Wolfgang Alschner is an empirical legal scholar specialized in international economic law and the computational analysis of law. He is a permanent faculty member of the Common Law Section with cross-appointment to the Faculty of Engineering, School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science. He is also a faculty member of the Centre for Law, Technology and Society at the University of Ottawa and heads the uOttawa Legal Technology Lab.  Prior to joining the University of Ottawa, Wolfgang worked for several years as an individual contractor for UNCTAD’s Section on International Investment Agreements and as a research fellow at the Graduate Institute in Geneva and the World Trade Institute in Bern, Switzerland. He is co-founder of the investment treaty analytics portal www.mappinginvestmenttreaties.... and has published in leading peer-reviewed journals such as the Yale Journal of International Law, the European Journal of International Law and the Journal of International Economic Law. His research focuses on using social and computer science methods in order to empirically investigate international law. His areas of interest include international investment law and arbitration, WTO law, regional trade agreements, international dispute settlement, law & economics and empirical analysis of law.

Manfred Elsig is Professor of International Relations at the University of Bern, and Deputy Managing Director and Director of Research of the World Trade Institute. He worked from 1997 to 1999 at the Swiss Federal Office for Foreign Economic Affairs. He obtained his PhD from the Political Science Institute at the University of Zurich. In 2004-2005 he was a teaching fellow at the International Relations Department at the London School of Economics and Political Science and joined the University of Bern in 2005. From 2013-2017, he was the Director of the NCCR Trade Regulation. Currently, he is a Member of the Governing Committee of the Swiss Network for International Studies and serves also as a Distinguished Professor at the Universiti Kebangsaan, Malaysia. His research focuses on the study of international organizations, preferential trade agreements, investment agreements and European trade policy. He is one of the founders of DESTA (design of trade agreements database) and EDIT (electronic database on investment treaties). He has published in leading journals in political science as well as interdisciplinary and law journals.

Joseph Francois is Professor of International Economics at the University of Bern and Managing Director of the World Trade Institute. He has served as the Chief of Research and the Acting Director of Economics for the U.S. International Trade Commission, as well as Senior Research Economist for the GATT/WTO. He has held professorships at the Erasmus University Rotterdam (international economics) and the Johannes Kepler University Linz (economic theory). He is a fellow of the Centre for Economic Policy Research (London), founding director of both the European Trade Study Group and the Institute for International and Development Economics, and senior research fellow with the Vienna Institute for International Economic Studies. He is also a long-standing board member of the Global Trade Analysis Project. He has served on the managing editorial board for the Review of Development Economics and the German Economic Review. He is currently on the advisory board for the Journal of Global Economic Analysis.

Miriam Manchin is an Associate Professor at Politecnico di Milano. She holds a Phd from the Université catholique de Louvain. She worked previously as a researcher at the Tinbergen Institute in Rotterdam, at the Centre for European Policy Studies in Brussels, at Centro Studi Luca d'Agliano in Milan, at the Kiel Institute in Kiel, and at the Vienna Institute for International Economics in Vienna. She also worked previously at the European Commission, Directorate-General for Economic and Financial Affairs. Miriam’s current research interests include economic integration, trade agreements, cross-border production chains, business group networks, multinational firms, trade and development, trade and institutions, and migration.