The EU’s common commercial policy is used as an instrument to realize its values in EU trading partners, reflected in the inclusion of sustainable trade and development chapters in EU preferential trade agreements (PTAs). This chapter asks if including non-trade provisions (NTPs) in EU PTAs has a systematic positive effect on non-trade outcomes in partner countries. It analyzes the relationship between bilateral trade flows, the coverage of NTPs in EU PTAs and the performance of EU partner countries on several non-trade outcome variables using synthetic control methods. It finds no robust evidence of a causal effect of including NTPs in EU PTAs on indicators of non-trade outcomes.

Since 2008, G20 leaders have repeatedly committed themselves to conclude WTO negotiations expeditiously and refrain from resorting to protectionism. They have not, however, lived up to these commitments. Trade growth has been anaemic for much of the intervening period, with deadlock in the WTO and reversion to aggressive unilateralism by the United States undermining global trade governance. Current trade tensions primarily involve the major trading powers. Resolving these tensions requires agreement between the main actors and greater focus on addressing the concerns of all WTO members regarding the operation of the organization. The major actors are all members of the G20. The G20 constitutes an important forum for the EU to provide leadership and to use its soft power to address geo-economic conflicts and bolster global trade governance. The chapter reviews the prospects for resolving current trade tensions and revitalizing the multilateral system through a discussion of the measures that could constitute EU trade leadership in the G20.

China, the EU and the United States are the world’s largest traders, and many of the tensions in the trading system arise in the relations among them. Our premise is that reforming WTO is a necessary condition for the organization to be a more salient forum for the three large economies to address trade tensions, and that agreement among these three trade powers in turn is necessary to resolve the problems of the WTO. After a brief discussion of the global challenges that ought to be on the WTO agenda and of the systemic context, we discuss both how China understands WTO reform and how the other two leading powers see the China problem in the WTO. We consider how the three see transparency, plurilateral negotiations, economic development differences, fisheries and industrial subsidies, WTO working practices, and dispute settlement. We conclude by considering the implications of our analysis for fostering cooperation between the three major trade powers in the WTO.

Voluntary sustainability standards (VSS) seek to improve social and economic outcomes in developing nations through voluntary commitments by firms located in these countries, who can advertise their adherence to the standard through certification and associated labels. VSS are a potential instrument to help achieve some of the objectives of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), but the current empirical evidence on their effectiveness is mixed. Distinguishing between Fair Trade VSS developed by non-governmental organizations and corporate-backed private VSS, this chapter disentangles the possible channels through which these two types of VSS regimes may impact on trade and, in turn, on SDGs. We review the evidence in the light of these channels, finding important differences between the two categories of VSS.

Unlike trade in goods, market access commitments for services usually comprise regulatory measures as opposed to trade taxes. In other words, they are generally about non-tariff measures (NTMs). In some sectors foreign access may be limited or completely prohibited through quantitative restrictions, e.g. bans on foreign provision of broadcasting or transport services, or requirements that government officials fly on the national airline. More generally, services activities are often regulated. Differences in regulation may then result in additional costs for foreign providers when they contest a market. Because they involve sale of intangibles in the form of service flows rather than physical goods, there is usually some form of direct interaction between service producers and customers. This means that establishment is more likely to be important for service exports than goods exports, resulting in an effective mix of cross-border and FDI related regulatory measures when we discuss market access in services.

Trade agreements require the parties to agree on the rules (regulations) that will determine whether a product is eligible to benefit from whatever provisions are embodied in the agreement. Thus, to be eligible for preferential market access benefits an exporter will need to document that the product has been produced in an eligible country. Such preferential rules of origin (RoO) have been the focus of much research, lobbying and policy debate. To a significant extent the more difficult it is for exporters to satisfy RoO – the more restrictive or stringent the RoO are – the less valuable preferential access will be. Less well-known and studied are non-preferential RoO. These are needed to determine whether a product is subject to a nation’s trade policy. For example, if the EU imposes an anti-dumping measure on imports of a product originating in China, there is need to determine the origin of that product to avoid possible circumvention. The same is true when it comes to access to government procurement markets: if India opens up access to public procurement contracts to firms from China, it will be necessary to determine whether goods are eligible – i.e. what constitutes a Chinese product. More generally, all countries regulate what constitutes the origin of a product (so-called marks of origin or country of origin labelling) for consumer information reasons, to be able to implement health and safety–related regulations, for statistical purposes, and so forth.

Over the last three decades, traditional barriers to trade – import tariffs and quantitative restrictions (QRs) – have fallen dramatically. Globally, average applied import tariffs are less than 10 percent, and are well below 5 percent in Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries. Quantitative import restrictions have become rare outside of agriculture and even there today mostly take the form of so-called tariff rate quotas where higher tariffs apply once a certain quantity of imports (the quota) has been exceeded. Many inputs used in production are duty-free if imported. The decline in tariffs and QRs was a driver of a boom in international trade flows in the 1990s and 2000s and supported major changes in the structure and composition of world production and trade as this came to be organized in global value chains (GVCs). Tariff reductions, complemented by technological and managerial advances, drive firms to specialize in specific tasks and activities. International supply chains and production networks are the mechanisms through which this process of specialization is organized, with production occurring – and value being added – in multiple countries that are part of a chain or network.