Supply chain transparency (SCT) regulations mandate or encourage international trade participants to provide information about a product’s supply chain path to specified stakeholders. SCT is an important regulatory tool for pursuing various public policy objectives, such as supply chain security, resilience, trade facilitation, and sustainable development. The transnational nature of SCT regulations and their characteristics as a technical barrier to trade (TBT) have created challenges to global trade governance and the international rule of law. This article focuses on SCT regulations adopted by the United States and the European Union. It suggests that recent US and EU SCT regulations are likely to constitute extraterritorial jurisdiction over foreign traders and data beyond their borders, create TBTs for many traders, and may conflict with domestic data security laws (DSLs). To promote the international rule of law and public-private collaborative governance, the article proposes recommendations for designing and implementing SCT regulations at the international level.
This paper examines Vietnam’s emerging role in the global semiconductor supply chain, highlighting how policy frameworks, foreign direct investment (FDI) strategies, and technology diplomacy interact to shape the country’s industrial trajectory. Drawing on policy documents, trade data, and investment trends, the study assesses Vietnam’s efforts to attract high-quality FDI, strengthen domestic technological capabilities, and integrate into global production networks. The analysis underscores the government’s pursuit of a balanced approach, which links industrial upgrading and sustainability with national security and global cooperation. It argues that Vietnam’s semiconductor strategy exemplifies a form of ‘technology diplomacy’, through which the state leverages economic openness and strategic partnerships to advance its digital transformation agenda and enhance sustainable competitiveness. The findings contribute to broader discussions on how developing economies can position themselves within high-technology sectors under the evolving global trade and investment order.
The Appellate Body (‘AB’) of the World Trade Organization (‘WTO’) Dispute Settlement System (DSS) has been paralysed due to the USA’s reluctance to approve appointment of members. The USA has criticized the AB for its inefficiency, and other procedural and substantive issues. The Multi-Party Interim Arbitration (‘MPIA’) has arisen as an interim solution to the AB crisis. The MPIA is envisaged under Article 25 of the Dispute Settlement Understanding (‘DSU’), which lacks clarity, and the MPIA mandate goes beyond DSU’s language, by for example going beyond the specified disputes under Article 25. As it will be seen in this article, since MPIA is a plurilateral solution, it lacks effectiveness and leads to increased transaction costs and uncertainty. The systematic issues with the AB raised by the USA persist even with the MPIA. As a voluntary tool, it lacks legitimacy, and very few countries have joined the MPIA, despite of significant developed and advanced developing countries. Further, the MPIA process is detrimental to the interests of third world countries since it adopts ambitious deadlines, and places additional resource burdens on developing countries. The incorporation of additional organizational measures, such as adoption of word limits, disproportionately impacts developing countries. In light of this, I argue that the MPIA has failed to garner legal and political legitimacy, notably in the view of the majority of developing countries, and has been an inadequate and flawed solution to the AB crisis.
The collapse of the World Trade Organization (WTO) Appellate Body (AB) has raised fundamental questions about how appellate mechanisms in international dispute settlement should be institutionally designed. While existing scholarship has primarily focused on the political causes of the crisis, less attention has been paid to the structural lessons the experience offers for the design of future appellate systems, particularly in the context of ongoing reform discussions within United Nations Commission on International Trade Law (UNCITRAL) Working Group III. This article addresses that gap by examining farewell speeches delivered by departing WTO AB members as a form of institutional testimony that reveals the internal pressures within the dispute settlement system. The analysis identifies three structural dynamics that contributed to the AB’s paralysis: mandate ambiguity that generated competing narratives of adjudicative authority; the transformation of procedural rules into sites of accountability contestation once political confidence eroded; and the structural fragility created by consensus-based institutional design. Building on these insights, the article developsa graduated accountability framework for the design of the proposed UNCITRAL appellate mechanism. The framework distinguishes three complementary layers of accountability – interpretive, institutional, and constitutional – through which disagreement can be managed across successive stages before escalating into systemic confrontation. The article argues that sustainable appellate adjudication requires not only judicial independence but also an institutional architecture capable of distributing accountability across multiple layers of dialogue, oversight, and structural safeguards.
This paper evaluates whether India’s Customs Authority for Advance Rulings (CAARs) delivers the legal certainty and predictability required of an advance ruling regime under Article 3 of the WTO Trade Facilitation Agreement (TFA). An analysis of CAAR decisions issued between January 2021 and December 2024 shows that fewer than 53% of rulings are delivered within the statutory three-month time frame prescribed under Indian customs law. Delays are structurally embedded in CAAR’s operating model, driven by sequential decision-making, mandatory reliance on port-level commissioner inputs, and the absence of dedicated in-house technical expertise. CAAR’s under-performance is best understood as a design failure, not a capacity constraint: port-specific applicability and a three-year validity limit undermine the very certainty that advance rulings are meant to provide, even where individual officers act diligently. The policy implications are immediate: CAAR requires a dedicated internal technical unit, explicit confirmation of nationwide binding effect, and a reassessment, if not removal of the three-year validity restriction. Treating CAAR’s shortcomings as a design flaw rather than a staffing deficit is essential to restoring confidence in advance rulings as a trade facilitation tool, aligning India’s practice with Article 3 of the TFA, and protecting legitimate reliance interests of traders and investors.
