Centre for Advanced Studies The Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies (RSCAS), created in 1992 and directed by Professor Brigid Laffan, aims to develop inter-disciplinary and comparative research on the major issues facing the process of European integration, European societies and Europe's place in 21 st century global politics. The Centre is home to a large post-doctoral programme and hosts major research programmes, projects and data sets, in addition to a range of working groups and ad hoc initiatives. The research agenda is organised around a set of core themes and is continuously evolving, reflecting the changing agenda of European integration, the expanding membership of the European Union, developments in Europe's neighbourhood and the wider world.

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In April 2017, a WTO panel ruled that China's anti-dumping investigation into imports of dissolving cellulose pulp from Canada violated the WTO's Anti-dumping Agreement. The panel found that China's description of the parallel price trends of dumped imports and domestic products failed to explain their finding that the dumped imports caused the decline in domestic prices. The ruling perhaps should not have surprised anyone as the WTO had made similar findings in disputes involving two previous Chinese anti-dumping investigations. This paper explores to what degree ‘parallel price trends’ can be used as a valid methodology to determine price depression, and whether it is the methodology itself that is problematic or China's implementation of that methodology that has caused it to lose three disputes over the past five years.

WTO Members may resolve their disputes in any of the WTO official languages: English, Spanish, or French. This article addresses the litigation of WTO disputes in Spanish and French. We provide a general overview of the WTO disputes that have been conducted in these languages and address the strategic considerations that should be made before choosing a language other than English for litigation. We conclude that the final decision on what language is more suitable for litigation will respond to each party’s individual needs, and thus, will inevitably vary from one party to another. GATT, WTO, dispute settlement, languages, Spanish, French, international litigation

The Agreement on Technical Barriers to Trade (hereinafter ‘TBT Agreement’) pursues the harmonization of technical regulations – one of the most commonly used measures affecting trade – through the use of international standards. International standards are developed by international standardizing bodies outside the World Trade Organization. Developing countries and least-developed countries (LDCs), however, encounter several obstacles impeding their effective participation in international standard setting, and, as a result, tend to determine ex post, based on their trade flows, which international standards to follow. Therefore, they are often referred to as ‘standard-takers’ instead of ‘standard-makers’. This article argues that a detailed look at the text of the TBT Agreement and the TBT Committee Decision makes clear that concrete steps to remove these obstacles and to engage developing countries and LDCs in international standard setting must become a prerequisite for promoting documents prepared by standardizing bodies to the status of an international standard within the meaning of the TBT Agreement.