"Gregory Shaffer has written a superb analysis of the crisis in the legal order governing world trade. The core of the book consists of co-authored studies of the engagement with the trading system of China, most significantly, but also of Brazil and India. But the decisive actor now turns out to be the US, which has increasingly lost faith in the system it created. In the future, suggests Shaffer, international rules must grant countries greater room to act and also to react to the actions of others. Yet an agreed interface between systems is also vital if the world is to enjoy a measure of stability and peace."
Martin Wolf, Financial Times
“For decades, international trade has been at the heart of globalization. And as Shaffer brilliantly illuminates in this book, trade—and the way countries like China, India and Brazil have used the laws and regulations that govern it to promote their own interests—has very much shaped the world we live in today. But globalization is now changing trajectory, and the way trade laws and regulations evolve from here will shape tomorrow’s world. Which makes Emerging Powers and the World Trading System essential reading for policymakers and academics alike. A book written exactly for our current moment.”
Ian Bremmer, President of Eurasia Group, founder of GZERO Media
"Gregory Shaffer unpacks an extraordinarily complex set of facts, rules, politics and decisions across multiple countries in the service of three basic and important questions about power shifts in the global trading system. His focus on "legal capacity" is striking, merging legal, political and sociological analysis to demonstrate the ways in which private power – the training and deployment of lawyers and arbitrators – and public power intersect. Emerging Powers and the World Trading System makes an important theoretical as well as empirical contribution."
Anne-Marie Slaughter, CEO New America
