This course is very different than any other WTO program. In a single week, you will learn more of the WTO Agreements’ actual obligations than you could from 25 years of trade panels discussing topical WTO issues. This course does not offer trade celebrities or the latest rumors. But, its single-speaker professional lecture with advanced slides does deliver a comprehensive understanding of the obligations that the U.S. has taken on in the entire body of WTO Agreements. In the most recent phase of his 40-year trade career, Professor Gold has taught this field on the doctoral and post-graduate levels at one of the nation’s leading law schools for more than a decade. He has designed this five-day course for busy trade professionals, carefully utilizing every minute of your time to deliver a full understanding of the complete structure and content of the WTO global trading system.

U.S. trade policy, and the U.S. trade law that implements it, must comply with the United States’ obligations under the WTO Agreements, and under the United States’ FTAs, BITs and other trade agreements that fit into the WTO framework. These obligations create a complex sets of parameters for all of the U.S. policy and law that govern the movement of goods, services, investment capital and intellectual property across U.S. borders in either direction. For this reason, the development of any new U.S. trade policy or law requires fluency in the obligations of WTO Agreements and the other U.S. trade agreements that fit into the WTO framework.

This course will discuss policy only to the degree necessary to understand the reasons for particular trade agreement obligations. This course is essential for anyone working in trade policy. But, for the reasons explained under the immediately preceding question, the course is not about policy, itself. It is about the trade agreement obligations that limit what the United States can do when developing its own trade policy and when writing the trade law that implements it.

This course will briefly discuss globalization for the purpose of setting out the relationship between trade agreements and globalization. The course will also discuss the tools that exist in trade agreements that can help reduce some of the negative impacts of globalization, including how use of those tools is managed by the WTO framework. But, the focus of this course is the WTO obligations and framework, not globalization itself.

This course will briefly touch on economics’ Law of Comparative Advantage, and its role among the assumptions that underlie global trading system. But, the focus of this course is the WTO obligations and framework, not trade economics.

Yes. This course is designed for non-lawyers and lawyers. Any trade professional can understand, and will greatly benefit from, the knowledge imparted by this course. This course is perfect for any trade professional because, as explained under the second question, above, understanding and formulating trade policy require fluency in these treaty obligations.

Yes. Many trade professionals spend their careers mostly focused on one toe of the elephant. This course is intended to give you an understanding of the elephant. It covers all of the main components of the WTO’s global agreements and system, including how those components interact with one another, with provisions of bilateral and regional trade agreements, and with U.S. national trade law and policy. This course is a unique opportunity for a trade professional to gain real depth in the content and structure of the entire breadth of the WTO global trading system.