General Agreement On Tariffs And Trade/World Trade Organization Research Articles

Участие стран в ГАТТ/ВТО и торговля в АТР: оценка долгосрочных эффектов

The purpose of this study is to assess the impact of participation by Asia-Pacific countries (APCs) in the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade/World Trade Organization (GATT/WTO) on their reciprocal trade from 1993–2021. The reduction of various barriers due to the APCs’ participation in the GATT/WTO, as well as in trade agreements, has contributed to the fact that, over the past three decades, trade in the Asia-Pacific region (APR) has become predominantly intra-regional. The estimates obtained by the author point to the long-term, positive impact of membership in the GATT/WTO on the trade of the APCs, explaining the dominance of the effect of globalization over the effect of regionalization. The processes of globalization and regionalization in the APR were neither conflicting nor complementary to each other. The estimates developed by the author show that the effects of the APCs’ participation in the GATT/WTO contributed to an increase in intra-regional trade by 129% and to an 11% increase in the entry into force of trade agreements. The results also show that bilateral (direct) participation of APCs in the GATT/WTO led to an increase in intra-regional trade by 46%, and unilateral (indirect) participation – by 110%. These results prove the importance of countries’ participation in the GATT/WTO for creating a relatively free area for trade in the APR, reducing various restrictive measures and intensifying intra-regional trade. Estimates of the border effect confirm the reduction of total barriers in interactions between the APCs in the long term. The article shows that the discussion and creation of various trade formats, including the largest in terms of coverage of the participating countries, on the one hand, can contribute to the fragmentation of the trade and economic system of the APR; on the other hand, it creates conditions for further liberalization of trade relations, complementing the functions of the WTO. The author suggests that participation in the WTO may allow Russia to use the mechanisms of globalization to discuss the easing of restrictions, as well as to increase trade with countries that do not implement strong restrictions on the Russian economy, including some of APCs

10 лет назад перед Россией открылись двери ВТО

This article begins with a brief discussion of the background of the USSR/Russia rapprochement with the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade/World Trade Organization (GATT/WTO) and some of the acute problems of the negotiation process. It is argued that the Russian Federation has received acceptable, balanced conditions of membership. The advantages gained during the first years of WTO membership are listed, both for the national economy and in the foreign arena. However, it is shown that, 10 years later, the benefits of membership are significantly lower in comparison with initial projections. This gap is attributed to the state of the Russian economy and the extinction of the continuing economic model based on the extraction and export of raw materials. The Russian economy needs real structural reforms and modernization, which would change the structure of exports in favour of finished products and modern services. Only in this case can the benefits of WTO membership increase significantly, justifying the original forecast. The article concludes with a discussion of current challenges in the world economy and trade, the crisis experienced by the WTO, and the active position of the Russian Federation on the future reform of the WTO.

The WTO puzzle, multilateral resistance terms and multicollinearity

Since Rose’s (2004) striking finding of negligible WTO trade effects, numerous studies have attempted to solve the so-called WTO puzzle. These studies have progressively improved model specifications to control for potential sources of bias, but they often lead to conflicting results. Multilateral resistance terms (MRTs) are considered to be one of the most crucial factors to be accounted for to avoid the omitted variable bias in the gravity model. What has gone unnoticed, however, is that the control for MRTs leads to near-prefect multicollinearity because of the structural relationship between the variables that measure the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade/World Trade Organization (GATT/WTO) membership status of any country pairs. This multicollinearity contributes to the fragility of the WTO effect estimates, as it dramatically increases SEs. In this article, we explain how this multicollinearity arises and provide evidence of it.

Explaining the ‘Health Check’ of the Common Agricultural Policy: budgetary politics, globalisation and paradigm change revisited

Three potential explanations of past reforms of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) can be identified in the literature: a budget constraint, pressure from General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade/World Trade Organization (GATT/WTO) negotiations or commitments and a paradigm shift emphasising agriculture's provision of public goods. This discussion on the driving forces of CAP reform links to broader theoretical questions on the role of budgetary politics, globalisation of public policy and paradigm shift in explaining policy change. In this article, the Health Check reforms of 2007/2008 are assessed. They were probably more ambitious than first supposed, although it was a watered-down package agreed by ministers in November 2008. We conclude that the Health Check was not primarily driven by budget concerns or by the supposed switch from the state-assisted to the multifunctional policy paradigm. The European Commission's wish to adopt an offensive negotiating stance in the closing phases of the Doha Round was a more likely explanatory factor. The shape and purpose of the CAP post-2013 is contested with divergent views among the Member States.

The CFS Case: Looking Back and Looking Forward

The coated free sheet paper from China case (CFS case) is the first one to give rise to a substantial countervailing duty (CVD)investigation in the history of trading frictions between China and the United States of America. This landmark investigation and its final definite countervailing subsidy determination have set a controlling precedent for subsequent US CVD investigations against exports from China. While looking back to look forward, we shall put emphases on four key issues in this case, namely (i) whether the Department of Commerce’s CVD investigation is ‘half–cooked rice’; (ii) a neglected ‘deliberation principle’ under the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade/World Trade Organization (GATT/WTO) CVD mechanism; (iii) an issue of double counting of duties; and (iv) the mechanism of using third–country benchmarks for the calculation of the subsidy benefit. In any case, a compromise or consideration for the other side is always indispensable.

Fight or Flight: A Study on Strategic Approaches Adopted by Chinese Lighter Manufacturers Facing EU CR Standard and Regulation

Partly due to the taking down of the barriers from tariffs by the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade/World Trade Organization (GATT/WTO), technical barriers to trade (TBT) have become something crucial for developing countries’ exportation. This article studies the strategic approaches taken by Chinese lighter manufacturers when they were confronted with EU’s barriers from its lighter standardization. After a brief survey on shortcomings of WTO/TBT agreement and the manifestation of proliferation of TBT worldwide, this article studies the approaches taken by different Chinese lighter manufacturers, borrowing the terms voice, compliance and exit from World Bank chief economist Jaffe and his team. Finally, a model of approaches is generalized for relative exporters’ reference.

Trade and Environmental Policy: A Race to the Bottom?

AbstractThe focus of this paper is the issue of regulatory chill and a race to the bottom in environmental standards and policies. In particular, it explores the possibility that resolution of this problem may lie in a more flexible application of the existing General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade/World Trade Organization (GATT/WTO) rules. The structure of the discussion is divided into four parts: (i) the standard analysis of trade and environmental policy is laid out; (ii) the theoretical analysis of and empirical evidence for the existence of pollution havens is reviewed; (iii) the main arguments as to why governments may weaken domestic environmental policy with greater trade liberalisation is outlined; and (iv) some recent analysis of border tax adjustments for environmental taxes is laid out, leading to the basic conclusion of the paper: a method for countering any tendency for regulatory chill and a race to the bottom in environmental policies is already embedded in existing GATT/WTO rules.

Enforcement, Private Political Pressure, and the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade/World Trade Organization Escape Clause

We consider the design and implementation of international trade agreements when (a) negotiations occur in the presence of uncertainty about future political pressures, (b) governments possess private information about political pressures at the time that the agreement is actually implemented, and (c) negotiated commitments can be implemented only if they are self‐enforcing. We thus consider the design of self‐enforcing trade agreements among governments that acquire private information over time. We provide equilibrium interpretations of General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade/World Trade Organization (GATT/WTO) negotiations regarding upper bounds on applied tariffs and GATT/WTO escape clauses. We also provide a novel interpretation of a feature of the WTO Safeguards Agreement, under which escape clause actions cannot be reimposed in an industry for a period equal to the duration of the most recent escape clause action. We find that a dynamic‐use constraint of this kind can raise the expected welfare of negotiating governments.

In the Shadow of Law or Power? Consensus-Based Bargaining and Outcomes in the GATT/WTO

This article explains how consensus decision making has operated in practice in the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade/World Trade Organization (GATT/WTO). When GATT/WTO bargaining is law-based, consensus outcomes are Pareto-improving and roughly symmetrical. When bargaining is power-based, states bring to bear instruments of power that are extrinsic to rules, invisibly weighting the process and generating consensus outcomes that are asymmetrical and may not be Pareto-improving. Empirical analysis shows that although trade rounds have been launched through law-based bargaining, hard law is generated when a round is closed, and rounds have been closed through power-based bargaining. Agenda setting has taken place in the shadow of that power and has been dominated by the European Community and the United States. The decision making rules have been maintained because they help generate information used by powerful states in the agenda-setting process. Consensus decision making at the GATT/WTO is organized hypocrisy, allowing adherence to the instrumental reality of asymmetrical power and the sovereign equality principle upon which consensus decision making is purportedly based.

The Limits of Judicial Power

This article analyzes the politics of supranational dispute resolution, focusing on trade-environment disputes in the context of the European Union (EU) and General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade/World Trade Organization (GATT/WTO). The author analyzes how the interaction of political and legal pressures has influenced decision making by the European Court of Justice (ECJ) and by GATT/WTO panels in trade-environment disputes.

“Constitutionalization” and Dispute Settlement in the wto: National Security as an Issue of Competence

The 1994 Uruguay Round revision of the dispute settlement mechanism under the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade/World Trade Organization (GATT/WTO) has made it a forum both for traditional trade issues and for interests ranging from environmental protection to national security. The limits of GATT jurisdiction have become important issues of dispute settlement within the WTO, especially as the emergence of the WTO and its rule-based, quasi-obligatory dispute settlement system has spurred a significant shift toward legalism. Constitutional structures are developing much faster in international trade law than in any other area of international law and, in the aftermath of the Uruguay Round, are integrating ever more aspects of economic relations among states. Within the WTO regime the dispute settlement mechanism established by the Understanding on Rules and Procedures Governing the Settlement of Disputes (DSU) plays a prominent role in enforcing its rules and reconciling a wide array of the members’ interests. The limits of the reach of the dispute settlement mechanism, given its obligatory character, are, to a certain degree, the limits of the constitutionalization of the organization as a whole.