This course is designed to focus on the historical origins, development, institutions, practices and effects of globalization, with a particular emphasis on international trade and the international organizations which developed to regulate and negotiate it. The WTO will be placed in its historical and development context with other international institutions, with a selection of case studies to highlight particular areas of the WTO's greatest accomplishments or weaknesses so that one of the key components of modern globalization can be fully understood in its dynamic international context. The effects of the WTO and international trade on the national policy-maker will be examined, such as its impacts on Hong Kong and Mainland China.