Global Trade Negotiations Research Articles

Industrial Digital Transformation and A Proposal to Rebuild Digital Trade Agenda

With the Fourth Industrial Revolution, a digitally connected global era has begun. Leading global companies are harnessing innovative technologies such as internet of things, big data, artificial intelligence, robotics and digital twin to revolutionize manufacturing process. This transformation is resulting in the creation of new business models and value-added products. It is time to shift the paradigm of trade by reforming the old mindset dominated by tangible goods. While current trade agreements contain some rules on digital trade, the scope of discussions lag behind the business reality of industrial digital transformation. This article purports to rebuild the objectives and priorities of global digital trade negotiations, by reflecting recent hyper-connectivity and hyper-intelligence. It proposes eight items for digital trade negotiations: digital transformation (DX) in trade, digital manufacturing services, internet access and traffic cost sharing, data trust for interoperability, artificial intelligence (AI) governance, cybersecurity and trade, big-tech platform regulations, and digital business taxation. digital transformation, digital trade, digital service, data flow, artificial intelligence, cyber security, big-tech platform

Extended carbon footprint and emission transfer of world regions: With both primary and intermediate inputs into account

By combining the latest statistics for the global economy in 2015, this study as a continuation of our previous work (Wu et al., 2020) investigates the extended carbon footprint of world regions and the emission transfer via commodity trade, by including both primary and intermediate inputs into consideration. The extended carbon footprint of the United States is revealed to be one and a half times as much as that of China, while this ratio is accounted as three quarters in our previous work, due to that final consumption takes a much larger share of the gross domestic product in the United States compared to the situation in China. CO2 emissions embodied in the primary inputs of the world economy are calculated to be equivalent to 42% of the emissions embodied in the genuine final consumption, highlighting the key role of capital goods in reallocating global carbon emissions. Moreover, emission transfer related with international commodity trade is explored, and the carbon trade links between major economies such as the United States, China, European Union, Russia, India and Japan are discussed in detail. In particular, the geographic and sectoral profiles for the carbon trade of the United States and China as two distinct economies are illustrated. It is revealed that Asia Pacific holds responsible for approximately half of the United States' carbon imports as well as China's carbon exports. Meanwhile, transport industry is taking up around one third of the United States' carbon exports while heavy and light industries totally dominate China's carbon exports. The outcome of this work may be supportive for providing more inclusive information regarding the establishment of global warming regimes, and may help us seek more informed policy choices and trade measures in global trade negotiations.

The Importance of Cross-Border Regulatory Cooperation in an Era of Digital Trade

AbstractTechnology is transforming global trade. The global trading system, however, has struggled to keep up with changes in technology. One of the major challenges for the trading system is that the issues raised by digitally enabled commerce are largely regulatory in nature. The issues that are at the forefront of digital trade increasingly relate to citizens’ most fundamental interactions, including speech, finance, energy, and transportation. This paper argues that resolving these international regulatory issues will require reforming the approach that has been taken to global trade negotiations. International discussions around the most challenging issues in the digital economy ought to move away from the ‘horse-trading’ nature of traditional trade negotiations and towards a strategy focused on regulatory cooperation. Failure to achieve regulatory cooperation could further fragment digital services based upon national borders. The Internet has the potential to positively impact the global economy precisely because it is global, decentralized, and bottom-up in nature. International policymaking through regulatory cooperation can maintain those principles, while protecting fundamental national concerns such as stability, privacy, and security.

Behind success stories: goal attainment in global trade and climate negotiations

How successful are transnational advocates? If they are successful, is this due to their advocacy efforts or because of a favourable policy context? This paper examines the policy success of transnational advocates. In doing so, it focuses on the positions interest groups adopt, the strategies they develop, and how these interact with the context of specific policy issues. Based on 467 interviews with non-state actors who were involved in 17 transnational policy issues in the fields of international climate change and trade policy, I assess the success of individual advocates by comparing the final policy outcome of each issue with the advocated policy positions. The findings demonstrate that it is not so much the strategies that lobbyists develop that explain success at global diplomatic conferences, but rather the degree of preferred policy change and whether these demands for change are endorsed by the groups’ national governments.

International Posturing amidst Domestic Neglect: India's Agricultural Policy Examined

AbstractIndia has actively tried to shape the WTO agricultural negotiations by submitting detailed proposals, building coalitions, and even taking hard stands (veto) at critical junctures. However, this aggressive posturing presents a sharp contrast with India's domestic agricultural space, where the situation highlights policy neglect, manifesting in agrarian distress and farmer suicides. This paper analyzes contradictions between India's internationally espoused negotiating positions and its domestic policy goals. It argues that India's core focus has been to preserve status quo in the domestic food markets, driven by the political need to provide food-based consumption subsidies and manage an assured price and supply protection to its vulnerable consumers. As a result, India's interests are divergent from most of its developing country coalition partners in the G-20 as well as the G-33 groups. Our discussion has significant implications for both the domestic policy, as well as the sustainability of India's strategy in global agricultural trade negotiations.

Are global trade negotiations behind a fragmented world of “gated globalization”?

We show that global trade negotiations can prevent global free trade. In a simple model where global tariff negotiations precede sequential Free Trade Agreements (FTAs), we show FTA formation can expand all the way to global free trade in the absence of global tariff negotiations but global free trade never emerges when global tariff negotiations precede FTA formation. This result arises precisely because global tariff negotiations successfully elicit concessions from negotiating countries. Moreover, global tariff negotiations can produce a fragmented world of “gated globalization” where some countries form FTAs that eliminate tariff barriers among themselves while outsiders continue facing higher tariffs.

Making education markets through global trade agreements

ABSTRACTThis paper uses the global trade negotiations and agreements, which include education sectors as potentially tradable services, to show the complex processes at work in making global education markets. Drawing on the work of Jens Beckert and others, I focus on the micro-processes of making capitalist orders and the challenges at hand in bringing decommodified sectors, like education, with distinctly different narratives to sustain their purpose. These processes include reimagining and offering alternative narratives to the idea of education as a public service; the reformatting of the education into the language of trade and legal documents; the use of devices, such as forecasting to represent the gains to be had into the future of trade agreements, or dispute settlement mechanisms to manage claims; and the strategic use of space and time as political resources to minimise frictions and lock in a preferred future for investors. I conclude by arguing that the ongoing circulation of alternative narratives about education makes instituting education particularly challenging, so that the future for investors is in no more way certain, despite efforts to reorient expectations.

Colonising the future: Mega-trade deals, education services and global higher education markets

This paper explores a less well-examined aspect of time in relation to higher education and the academy; that of ‘time-future’. The paper takes the case of education trade strategies being pursued by governments and allied agencies, and explores the multiple ways in which time-future is mobilised. Drawing on trade documents, government statistics, and related reports, the paper points to two time-future dynamics at work. The first dynamic focuses on the ways in which the future is imagined by strategic actors, and legitimated through creating equivalences between education trade, economic growth and prosperity. The second dynamic explores the ways in which the current round of global and regional trade negotiations colonise the future as a political resource. I reflect on how time-future is a key resource and modality of power to be claimed and cognitively shaped so as to reorient actor’s expectations towards the rhythms and demands of capitalism, and away from the temporal orders of the academy. However, efforts to commodify higher education, on the one hand, and colonise higher education futures exclusively to serve the interests of economic investors, on the other, continues to be contested. As a result, a new temporal order is yet to become common-sense, and an existing order is yet to die.

The Dangers of Limited Member Treaties: The ACTA Case

In the context of the initiative for Upgrading the Single Market, the Commission has put forward a re-evaluated approach to trade – Trade for All. The EU prioritises a return to global trade negotiations and puts forward a three-prong strategy for re-invigorating the World Trade Organisation’s role in trade negotiations. The first two prongs – the WTO to play a central role and single issue focused negotiations – are fairly straight-forward. However the third prong – letting subsets of nations advance particular agendas, with others to follow later – raises some concerns. While the Trade Facilitation Agreement appears to be a successful example of this, the ill-fated Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) is another story. The European Commission was a strong advocate of this proposed treaty, but it was roundly rejected by the European Parliament. This paper reviews the experience of the ACTA negotiations to identify important lessons if the EU is to pursue limited membership treaties with greater success.

The Politics and Social - Legal Instruments of Merger Schemes : Nigeria and the Ecowas Experiences

The politics and Social-legal instruments of regional merger schemes or world Government were aimed ultimately at achieving supra-nationalism (aka a complete political union) beyond that of the five tenets of economic integration by a group of acceding sovereign (independent) States within a contiguous geographical zone or geo-strategic zones. A typical example was found in the European Union (EU) which was aimed at providing a common national identity, external common defense and national security, securing of a larger inter-continental market for its agricultural products, consumer goods and industrial raw materials availability and affordability as vital factors input within the mega zone. Politically, the sole goal of a world Government was to actualize a balance of power and octopus superpower status hitherto unattainable by smaller states within the zone. Mergers represent a comity of nations by fusion with stronger bargaining power in global political equations and economic trade negotiations. This paper examined how achievable were these goals in the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) in this 21 st century as other trading blocs across the globe grapple with the harmonization and challenges of social-legal instruments at each tenet stage of merger schemes, using Nigeria and the ECOWAS experiences as the probe-focus of analysis.

Global Food Security—Introduction

Global Food Security—Introduction

Communicating the European Union to Australia: The EU Information Strategy and Its Reception Down Under

Abstract The European Union (EU) has become an important global actor in numerous areas. It is an economic giant, a key actor in global trade and trade negotiations. It leads talks on environment and it is the biggest provider of assistance to the developing world. It is the largest contributor to the United Nations budget and its peacekeeping missions are present in all major conflicts. With such prominent global presence, it would seem that when the EU speaks, the world listens. This paper assesses whether new public communicative spaces are emerging between the European Union and the rest of the world, including Australia. It first argues that supranational developments in the EU have encouraged an important shift in which international political communication is no longer equated with the boundaries of the nation state. It goes on to illustrate how the emergent Euro-polity is developing an important strategy for communication not only with its own Member States and their citizens but also with the world. To test how the new communication environment is received outside the EU, encounters of the Australian media with the European Union are analysed. The results tend to confirm the European Union’s existing fears of being largely unheard.

World Trade: A new direction

Global trade negotiations are moribund, with the World Trade Organization’s agenda stalled and the neo-liberal ideology it serves confronted by a rising chorus of criticism. The trading system, built on the premise that promoting commercial interests necessarily advances the general interest, instead has fed a multi-faceted planetary crisis. At this juncture, trade policy must find a new way forward. The key to this change lies in reversing the priority that in the past made free trade an end in itself, thereby consigning the larger goal of sustainable development to an afterthought. From now on, economic, social, and environmental sustainability goals should set the criteria for designing and applying multilateral trade rules. We suggest concrete steps to help transform the WTO from an agent of privilege and profit into a force for an equitable, peaceful, and resilient world.

Agriculture and Trade

Agriculture is an industry which in the absence of government farm programs; the industry comprises many firms selling virtually standardized products. Agriculture is an Industry which can be understood by applying the demand and supply tools of competitive markets. In recent years, agriculture protection and its impact on developing countries have attracted growing attention. The successful integration into the world economy are home to more than 2 billion people has meant that developing countries have increased their share in global trade in Agriculture sector. Most of those gains have come from increased exports of manufactured products. Integration in agriculture is lagging behind. Most industrial and many developing countries still protect agriculture at high levels. Agriculture protection continues to be among the most important issues in global trade negotiations, with high protection in industrial countries being the main cause of the breakdown of the Cancun Ministerial Meetings in 2003. Reshaping the world’s trade system and reducing barriers to trade could accelerate medium term growth and reduce global poverty. For most developing countries, including those are net food importers, agriculture is the key sector for poverty reduction.

Detection of mislabeled commercial fishery by-products in the Philippines using DNA barcodes and its implications to food traceability and safety

Global trade negotiations require a stringent line of certifications on accurate labeling and species traceability. National trade policies should therefore, comply with these requirements, not only to increase international competitiveness, but also to ensure food security, sustainability and safety. However, this is difficult to achieve without a strong basis for monitoring strategies and enforcement. In this study, issues on the identities of several species of sardines, cream dories, fish sold as fillets and choice cuts and shrimps were presented using DNA barcodes. Indications of mislabeling were found in frozen “tawilis” samples and “bluefin” tuna fillets. Some products have been identified at the species level. Finally, fish labeled as gindara steaks have been found to be a fish species which can cause health problems. These results highlight the importance of increasing national concern and government effort in food traceability and that DNA barcoding provides a robust method of assessment for species identification and authenticity testing of commercial fishery products.

"Trade policy, not morals or health policy": the US Trade Representative, tobacco companies and market liberalization in Thailand.

The enforced opening of Thailand's cigarette market to imports in 1990 has become a cause celebre in debates about the social and health impacts of trade agreements. At the instigation of leading US-based cigarette manufacturers, the US Trade Representative (USTR) threatened trade sanctions against Thailand to compel the government to liberalize its domestic cigarette market. Thailand's challenge to the USTR led to referral to General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) arbitration. While GATT ruled in favour of the USTR on market access, it also found that Thailand could subsequently enact non-discriminatory tobacco control regulation without contravening the GATT agreement. This paper contributes to existing literature via its analysis of tobacco industry documents that highlight not only USTR responsiveness to lobbying from tobacco corporations, raising concerns about the drivers of globalization and the limited protection afforded to public health concerns in trade agreements. Significantly, the documents also indicate that USTR support of the tobacco industry was not unconditional, being subject to wider pressures of global trade negotiations. Such qualification notwithstanding, however,,ongoing governmental willingness to advance the international interests of tobacco corporations remains a concern from a public health perspective, particularly given the failure of the US to ratify the World Health Organization's Framework Convention on Tobacco Control.

China's Participation in WTO Negotiations

In November 2001, China finally acceded to the World Trade Organization after a marathon accession negotiation that lasted 15 years. As China’s accession coincided with the launch of the Doha Round, many commentators predicted that China’s participation in the trade negotiations would have significant impacts on the Round. However, this has not proven to be the case. What have been the approaches taken by China in global trade negotiations? Why did China adopt these approaches? How did China’s different negotiating approaches affect the dynamics of trade negotiations? These are the questions addressed in this article. The paper argues that China started as a reluctant player in the negotiations, and only gradually made its way into the core decision-making group of the WTO rather late during the round. Even though China has now been accepted as a member of the G-7, the most powerful group in the WTO, it has been playing only supportive rather than leading roles. The article explains the reasons for such low profile approaches, and also examines the value of Chinese proposals from both quantitative and qualitative perspectives. The article concludes with some thoughts on the broader implications of China’s growing power in the WTO as a whole.

Advancing Sustainable Development in Global Trade and Multilateral Negotiations

Published by Palgrave Macmillan World exports and imports are quickly recovering after the 2008-09 sharp decline in merchandise trade, as illustrated by global trade performances in the first and second quarters of 2010. In spite of this impressive recovery, domestic concerns in OECD countries about employment, competitiveness and China’s exchange rate policy have created a difficult political environment for further liberalisation under the Doha Round. Interestingly, developing countries, which were reluctant to engage in a new round of trade negotiations back in 2001, are now in the vanguard of those that wish for a swift conclusion of the talks, even if consensus on the ambitious ‘development package’ envisaged in Doha remains elusive. At the same time trade has been the subject of unprecedented attention and scrutiny in the climate change talks. In a world where multilateral cooperation is in crisis there is a dire need for the international community to generate new types of arrangements and innovative responses to the imperatives of development and the global transition to a low-carbon economy.

Agricultural Distortions in Sub-Saharan Africa: Trade and Welfare Indicators, 1961 to 2004

For decades, agricultural price and trade policies in Sub-Saharan Africa have hampered farmers’ contributions to economic growth and poverty reduction. Although there has been much policy reform over the past two decades, the injections of agricultural development funding, together with ongoing regional and global trade negotiations, have brought distortionary policies under the spotlight once again. A key question asked of those policies is: How much are they still reducing national economic welfare and trade? Economy-wide models are able to address that question, but they are not available for many poor countries. Even where they are, typically they apply to just one particular previous year and so are unable to provide trends in effects over time. This paper provides a partial-equilibrium alternative to economy-wide modeling, by drawing on a modification of so-called trade restrictiveness indexes to provide theoretically precise indicators of the trade and welfare effects of agricultural policy distortions to producer and consumer prices over the past half-century. The authors generate time series of country level indexes, as well as Africa-wide aggregates. They also provide annual commodity market indexes for the region, and a sense of the relative importance of the key policy instruments used.

An international instrument for international cultural policy

This article lays out the contexts informing a unique, international instrument for policy and the development of creative works: the UNESCO Convention on the Protection and Promotion of the Diversity of Cultural Expressions, 2005. It argues that culture needs to be defended against those interested in including cultural services in global trade negotiations at the World Trade Organization, and demonstrates how the Convention may be implemented to give cultural agendas an equal status alongside economic, social and environmental issues that currently determine policy for development. It gives analysis of some of the key articles and suggests that although the instrument will have to be tested legally, it provides the framework for national policy to build sustainable infrastructures in recognition that diversity of cultural expressions is central to the well-being of our societies.