Medellín manifesto on transnational value chains and international law

Abstract Global Value Chains (GVCs) have been heralded as the ‘new world of trade’, yet they branch far beyond what has traditionally been considered ‘trade’—they interact with and are informed by multiple legal regimes often in ways unrelated to the theoretical and practical bases of those regimes. Building on the 2016 IGLP Manifesto, which sought to place law at the centre of GVC research, the Medellín Manifesto’s aspiration is to establish a research agenda that is specifically focused on international law: one that treats GVCs as amorphous and transnational legal creatures—they are transnational value chains (TVCs); one that recognises that the interdisciplinary techniques used to understand TVCs and define them in law—regardless of whether they reflect ‘truth’ or ‘fact’; and ultimately one that explores international law’s possibilities and limits along the trajectory of TVCs.