International Trade Law

International Trade Law is the body of legal rules governing the cross-border movement of goods, services, technology, and intellectual property between different countries. It mainly covers WTO agreements, the Convention on Contracts for the International Sale of Goods (CISG), international trade practices such as Incoterms, international payment and settlement rules, anti-dumping and countervailing measures, and dispute settlement mechanisms. Use cases include: concluding international sales contracts, handling cross-border payment and letter of credit disputes, responding to anti-dumping investigations, and utilizing WTO dispute settlement procedures. Note: International Trade Law is not a single code but consists of multilateral treaties, bilateral agreements, domestic laws, and customs; different jurisdictions may have conflicting rules on the same issue, so attention must be paid to choice-of-law clauses and dispute resolution methods (arbitration or litigation); the CISG allows parties to exclude its application. Compared with 'international commercial law,' international trade law focuses more on trade rules between states and the WTO framework, while international commercial law focuses on transaction law among equal commercial parties; compared with 'international economic law,' international trade law is narrower in scope and does not cover macro areas such as international investment and finance. Foreign trade practitioners should be familiar with Incoterms, the CISG, and the choice-of-law and arbitration clauses in contracts to prevent risks.