Abstract

Particularly since the late 1980s, International Economic Law (IEL) has been characterized by the growing pressure to be interpreted and applied, as well as redesigned and updated, as a major driver of sustainability, promoting equitable liberalization and protection of international trade and foreign investments. Within the perspective of a very ambitious UN 2030 Agenda, new international substantive and institutional rules have been discussed, and sometimes agreed on, to shape trade and investment agreements, and unilateral measures have been adopted to pursue sustainability targets when common understandings were not possible to achieve. Within this already very demanding context, first economic clashes started to arise -and explode- in particular between the United States and China; and, subsequently, the inability to find diplomatic solutions to overcome geopolitical tensions has resulted in highly thorny conflicts, putting further strain on global economic governance. In such a difficult context, the Re-Globe Jean Monnet Module and the Interest Group on International Economic Law (DIEcon) of the Italian Society of International and EU Law (SIDI) joined forces to analyse this new complex reality and systematize the proposals seeking stability and fairness, guaranteeing core labour and environmental standards, and keeping global warming under control. The present open-access book, therefore, gathers together -with the very important editing support of Klarissa Martins Sckayer Abicalam, to whom we express our gratitude- the essays produced in some of the 2023 - 2024 DIEcon and Re-Globe events, considering the IEL developments in practice and scholarship, with constant attention to the EU. In fact, the EU is a major actor in pursuing sustainability, and economic security, in its trade policy and the IEL reform processes -an approach at the centre of the Re-Globe activities, which has been highly enriched by the relevant comparative perspectives of the DIEcon experts.