This article examines the efficacy of the WTO treaties’ security exception provisions in curbing abusive appeals to national security to justify otherwise impermissible trade measures. It specifically explores whether GATT Article XXI and its sister provisions establish objectively discernible prerequisite conditions for their invocation, how far Member discretion extends in defining “essential security interests,” and whether the WTO dispute system offers sufficiently objective legal standards to prevent abuse of the security exceptions. Building on existing scholarship, this article employs a comprehensive interpretive analysis of all available means under the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties (VCLT) and integrates not just the landmark Russia – Traffic in Transit report, but also the recent United States – Steel and Aluminum and United States – Origin Marking cases of December 2022. This interpretive exercise identifies a uniform analytical framework running through each WTO Panel report reviewing invocations of the security exceptions and applies that framework to critique the U.S. position on the issue. Under this interpretive framework, this article ultimately determines whether and to what extent the WTO security exceptions including GATT Article XXI(b)(iii) justify discriminatory and anti-competitive trade measures purportedly imposed in the name of “economic security.”

This paper discusses the antitrust reform measures taken during the occupation of Japan following the end of World War II. These antitrust reforms included the dissolution of the zaibatsu business groups and the adoption of the Antimonopoly Act. However, the trust-busting and antitrust measures taken by Japan failed to prevent the eventual rise of keiretsu business groups and lower the concentration of corporate ownership in Japan. The primary reasons behind this failure were the inability of the reformers to fully dismantle the zaibatsu business groups and the changing priorities of the reformers due to the growing threat of the spread of communism in Asia. Despite the shortcomings of the Japanese antitrust reforms, the existence of the keiretsu business groups within Japan did not prevent Japan from successfully democratizing, experiencing significant economic growth, or reducing income inequality.

Over the last decades domestic and international legal frameworks have successfully coalesced to limit corrupt behavior worldwide. However, despite their success, current regulatory tools are not sufficiently well-equipped to address corruption in modern economic settings. These mechanisms can often be too costly to implement, too cumbersome to induce compliance, politically manipulatable, and may disincentivize foreign investment and internal corporate monitoring efforts. To address such drawbacks, policymakers should consider the introduction of blockchain-based tools in developing future anti-corruption efforts. Blockchain can serve as a foundation for structures that can make it more attractive, easier and cost-efficient to monitor economic transactions, to effectuate necessary compliance measures, and to reduce opportunities for corruption to occur. Blockchain’s inherent advantages could help establish more transparent, widely trusted, and ultimately more democratic governance systems that are better aligned with modern economic and social relations. Public-private partnerships, along with multiparty cooperation between countries and international organizations, should encourage the adoption of blockchain-based tools, assuage concerns over their use, and ultimately lead to the design and implementation of more effective anti-corruption regulations.