This chapter examines whether and to what extent emerging countries may be able to engage in alternative approaches to trade regulation among themselves and in their relations to developed economies. It shows that liberal orthodoxy is in retrenchment. It documents the reservations that many emerging powers have about the neoliberal approach, and shows the conflict between some trade rules and state-led development strategies (“developmentalism”). In some areas, emerging powers are resisting liberalization pressures by ignoring certain existing rules, refusing to agree to others, and seeking to create alternative orderings with more flexible standards. However, there is not always consensus within key countries about trade and development policy. They have differences on many aspects of liberalization, and there are limits to their capacity to create alternative economic spaces. While resistance from the South and rising protectionism in the North have stalled the liberalization drive, leaving trade law more open to developmentalism for now, the South has not developed the kind of strong ideological consensus and strategic coordination needed to fundamentally alter the trade regime. Countries are guided by pragmatism and divergent national interests.

There are many indications that this world order is undergoing a fundamental transformation both in terms of who are the influential players and in terms of what governance norms and structure they seek to pursue. By way of conclusion, this chapter first summarizes these transformations and offers a mapping of their current repercussions in international economic relations. This chapter then argues that overcoming the current disintegration of international economic relations would require a pluralist world order. Lastly, it outlines the normative parameters of what such an order could comprise.

Rather than a wholesale rejection of neoliberalism, emerging powers are engaging in policy eclecticism: adopting some of the tenets of liberal ordering while rejecting others, applying liberal disciplines asymmetrically in pursuit of strategic self-interest, creating other fora for negotiations and adopting different regulatory priorities. In this chapter, we examine how emerging countries’ discontent with the status quo transpired, and what is left of the liberal ordering in the practice of emerging countries. The first part assesses how developing countries are utilizing WTO law to further their own economic policies, but also denotes how they are strategically breaching some rules and resisting the adoption of new disciplines. The second part analyzes how and why bilateral investment treaties and related institutions are falling out of favor with emerging countries after the initial wave of adoption of these instruments. This chapter highlights the tensions between emerging countries’ developmental policies and IEL, along with the more specific clashes that have transpired in recent decades in their practice of trade and investment law.

Developing economies have been able to make use of the liberal trade and investment regime to support their development strategies without having to adopt the full gamut of neoliberal prescriptions. The status quo is, in many ways, an agreement to disagree, made up of a combination of effective resistance to new rules, de jure and de facto derogations, and strategic noncompliance. The post-2008 period, however, called this truce into question. Transformations of the relationship between development and international economic law stem from the confluence of domestic shifts regarding development economics theory and practice on one hand, and global shifts with respect to the international institutions of economic governance on the other hand.

The nature of developing countries’ resistance to the traditional BITs regime varies. Some states are withdrawing from existing agreements or related systems such as the World Bank’s International Center for the Settlement of Investment Disputes. Others call for changes in the scope of new BITs, and yet others promote radical alternatives. Recent BITs signed by emerging countries, and the Model BITs they have developed, offer a departure from the consensus of the 1990s and early 2000s, from the treaty coverage to the nature of the rights and obligations of host states and investors.The process for defining negotiating positions also has evolved to be more inclusive and more deliberative. This chapter focuses particularly on initiatives for investment regulation in South Africa, Brazil, India and China, and in Africa under the auspices of the SADC.

This chapter focuses on the discourse emanating from developing countries regarding international economic law, particularly as it relates to liberalization and development. It highlights tensions between narratives of cooperation among developing countries and domestic realities of diverging interests and priorities. With respect to cooperation, the larger, middle-income countries and some regional groupings emphasize mutual respect for sovereignty and domestic political economy choices. Investment relations among them are ostensibly in support of domestically designed developmental projects and needs. South–South trade groups seek to unlock regional potential free from the political constraints that often accompany North–South trade relations. However, a closer consideration of the domestic discourse and political economy models of Brazil, China, India and African countries (in the context of regional groupings such as SADC- and African Union-sponsored initiatives) denotes significant divergences in objectives for trade and investment relations, as well as in the degree and means of economic liberalization.

An era marked by an uneasy truce between developed countries and the developing world is coming to an end. This era, which reached its apogee in the 1990s, could be characterized as “embedded” neoliberalism, where developing countries signed on to an international economic law (IEL) system premised on neoliberal tenets but softened by de jure and de facto exceptions and derogations ostensibly to accommodate developmental needs and policies. Initially, developing countries resisted rules that imposed unwanted restrictions and that limited growth options. But it was the best they could secure at the time, so they accepted much of the regime thus creating a temporary truce. With this truce between market-oriented globalization and state-based developmentalism unraveling, we look at how things might evolve and ask if there is another set of relations that would address changing conditions, manage conflicting interests and restore some stability.

The world economy is rife with clashes of values and interests. States in the North, encouraged by multinational corporations (MNCs), push to further open global markets, reduce the role of the state in the economy and provide special protection for foreign investors. States in the South resist some of these pressures in the name of development, maintain a commitment to state-led growth and demand more control over their domestic markets and opportunities abroad for their exporters. These tensions translate into stalemates over the scope of existing rules, struggles to create new ones and even the possibility that the multilateral rule-based system itself will collapse.

Over all this looms China. In recent years, China has become more assertive on the world stage, doubled down on its commitment to state-led growth and announced policies that conflict with existing and proposed rules. As its economy grows in both absolute terms and relative to that of the United States and the European Union (EU) and it strengthens relations with other developing countries, China's capacity to influence trade and investment policy may grow apace. Could we be witnessing the end of the postwar liberal order and the emergence of a China-led order more supportive of Global South values?