Global Trade Governance Research Articles

Making Global Trade Governance Work for Development: Perspectives and Priorities from Developing Countries

Introduction Carolyn Deere Birkbeck Part I. Enduring Development Challenges and New Agendas for Global Trade Governance: 1. Globalization, development, and democracy Jose Antonio Ocampo 2. The United Nations and the Millennium development goals: what roles in and beyond the governance of global trade? Laskhmi Puri 3. The interactions of trade, macroeconomic policies and sustainability: implications for global trade governance Alejandro Nadal 4. A sustainable development perspective on global trade governance Ricardo Melendez-Ortiz and Trineesh Biswas Part II. Roles and Responsibilities in Global Trade Governance: Diversity in Developing Country Priorities and Strategies: 5. New powers in the club: the challenges of global trade governance Amrita Narlikar 6. China's ascent in global trade governance: from rule taker to rule shaker and, maybe rule maker? Henry Gao 7. LDC priorities for improved global trade governance Atul Kaushik and Julian Mukiibi 8. Priorities for small states in global trade governance Edwin Laurent 9. Improving the participation of small developing countries in the governance of the multilateral trading system Richard Bernal Part III. Strengthening Multilateralism: Priorities for WTO Reform: 10. The WTO, democracy, and development: a view from the South Bhupinder Chimni 11. Reclaiming development in the world trading system revisited Yong-Shik Lee 12. Fostering developing country engagement in the dispute settlement system: outstanding challenges and governance implications Niall Meagher 13. Rethinking the governance of aid for trade David Luke and Luisa Bernal 14. Strengthening WTO surveillance: making transparency work for developing countries Arunabha Ghosh 15. Why not an Ombudsman at the WTO? A proposal for debate Felix Pena Part IV. WTO Decision-Making Processes: 16. Towards fair and inclusive decision-making in WTO negotiations Brendan Vickers and Faizel Ismail 17. Revisiting the single undertaking: towards a more balanced approach to WTO negotiations Miguel Rodriguez and Marie Wilke 18. Enhancing developing country participation in global trade governance through South-South coalitions in the World Trade Organization Vicente Yu 19. Inclusive trade governance: participation of stakeholders from the national to the multilateral levels Rashid Kaukab 20. Global trade governance and development: the WTO accession conundrum Carlos Primo Braga and Olivier Cattaneo Part V. Conclusion: 21. Development-oriented agendas for global trade governance: a summary of proposals Carolyn Deere Birkbeck.

‘Development-Orientated Perspectives on Global Trade Governance: A Summary of Proposals for Making Global Trade Governance Work for Development‘

This working paper draws together the priorities and proposals set forth in the book 'Making Global Trade Governance Work for Development', and places them in the context of current policy debates and the scholarly literature.The book's overarching argument is that the way global trade is governed can facilitate or hinder the prospects for reaching rules and arrangements that benefit developing countries. Yet, to date, the visibility of development perspectives in the scholarly debates on global trade governance has been weak. Together, the contributors to this book provide concrete guidance on what a development agenda for global trade governance might include. They both reinforce and supplement development - oriented proposals already on the table. For the purpose of this book, governance is broadly defined to include the suite of processes, principles, and norms as well as the institutional architecture through which rules and practices for managing global trade are made, implemented and enforced.The paper begins with a review of the policy context for discussion of global trade governance and institutional reform of the WTO and the rise of debates on development and trade governance. It then outlines the scope of the broader literature on global trade governance and WTO reform, of which the development dimension is one part. It also reviews the main contours of debate on trade and development, noting that these debates have a considerable impact on the thrust of development agendas for trade governance reform. The heart of the paper draws together development-oriented proposals from across the book, showing where and how they build on or diverge from existing proposals. It highlights four thematic areas where clear development priorities and proposals for improved global trade governance exist.The first theme places global trade governance in the context of global economic governance more broadly. It draws attention to the many components of trade governance, highlighting a range of relevant multilateral, bilateral and regional arrangements, as well as the relevance to trade governance of the many international economic, social and environmental regimes that impact development.The second theme addresses expectations about roles and responsibilities of developing countries in trade governance, the diversity of developing country priorities and strategies, their efforts to organize themselves collectively, and their relationships with national stakeholders at. The third theme identifies proposals for strengthening multilateralism in global trade and WTO reforms that would benefit developing countries. In light of the practical challenges of integrating development priorities into WTO negotiations and the subsequent implementation process, proposals in this area relate to the goals and principles underpinning the WTO, the scope of the WTO agenda, its functions (such as dispute settlement, monitoring, and capacity building, among others) and the role of the Secretariat.A fourth theme is devoted to proposals for improving the fairness of processes of trade negotiations at the bilateral, regional and multilateral level. The chapter concludes with the question of political strategy for making global trade governance work for development.

Making Global Trade Governance Work for Development: Perspectives and Priorities from Developing Countries edited by Carolyn Deere Birkbeck Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2011

Making Global Trade Governance Work for Development: Perspectives and Priorities from Developing Countries edited by Carolyn Deere Birkbeck Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2011

A New Model for Global Governance: Mutual Benefit of the WTO and FTAs

Setting up Experimental Economic Development Zone and groping the way across the river is the successful experience of China's reform and opening up, which could be referenced for global trade governance. Similarly, Economic Integration (FTA) should be regarded as an experimental area of the global multilateral trade governance institutions (WTO). The tough contradiction between balanced development of trade and equally enjoying fruits of the development by all members along with deficiencies of the WTO multilateral trade governance institutions could be broken, through the practicality and experimental role of establishing FTA by seeking successful experience, regulations and mechanisms. And they will be applied to the WTO multilateral system to better make it a sound global trade governance institution. Consequently, the WTO and FTA of long‐term coexistence and complementary trend is a new pattern of global trade governance.

Book Review: Soo Yeon Kim, Power and the Governance of Global Trade: From the GATT to the WTO

Book Review: Soo Yeon Kim, <i>Power and the Governance of Global Trade: From the GATT to the WTO</i>

Global Governance of Water Trade and the Canadian Export Regulations - Reconciling the Legal Quagmire with the Principle of Subsidiarity

Global Governance of Water Trade and the Canadian Export Regulations - Reconciling the Legal Quagmire with the Principle of Subsidiarity

Power and the governance of global trade: from the GATT to the WTO – By Soo Yeon Kim

Power and the governance of global trade: from the GATT to the WTO – By Soo Yeon Kim

Global Trade Governance and the Challenges of African Activism in the Doha Development Agenda Negotiations

This article develops a bottom-up approach to global trade governance and explains how subordinate states are able to develop resistance strategies to top-down processes in the World Trade Organisation (WTO). It highlights the growing activism and influence of African states in the global governance of international trade through a case study of the involvement of African states in the current Doha Development Agenda (DDA) negotiations. In so doing, it presents new evidence of the role played by non-dominant states in shaping and contesting the rules and practices of contemporary global trade governance. The article also provides theoretical insights into the source of African resistance in the WTO by drawing attention to the role of discourse in contemporary global trade governance. In this case study the analysis focuses in particular on how subordinate African actors make use of prevailing discourses of development to hold major powers and the WTO to account for their public commitment to negotiate new trade rules that will deliver development. It underlines the extent to which subordinate actors tend to use what is available to them—in this case the discourses of dominant actors—to challenge existing power structures. The conclusion reached is that African resistance creates an African dilemma; while resistance to existing power processes means that African member states can no longer be ignored in WTO negotiations, it also means that the WTO as a forum for global governance is less effective since consensus-based agreement becomes more difficult to achieve. And the less effective the WTO is in multilateral trade governance, the more member states—and in particular dominant states—ignore the WTO and seek bilateral and regional alternatives in order to secure market opening.

Between market, state and society: Labour codes of conduct in the southern African garment industry

This paper compares the way garment factory workers in South Africa, Swaziland and Lesotho experience the interaction between mechanisms for inspecting labour codes of conduct and government functions and trade unions. In South Africa and Swaziland there was little awareness of the potential impact of such instruments on working conditions. In Lesotho, where there is a high profile campaign, workers are more aware of the codes, but confusion over who visitors to factories are, and corporate whitewash, limit the impact of instruments. In all three countries workers perceived the impact of codes of conduct on labour rights as negligible. This differed between firms, with workers in firms supplying to the higher end of the South African market being more positive. Given the absence of coherent global governance of trade in the garment industry, codes of conduct will remain an inadequate response to the abuse of workers' rights, worldwide and in southern Africa.

Engaging with private sector standards: a case study of GLOBALG.A.P.

There is now a fairly substantial literature on private global business regulation which focuses on the rise of non-governmental and private regulatory systems alongside traditional state-based systems. These private systems cross national borders and impact on international trade which, in the intergovernmental realm, is governed by the rules of the World Trade Organization (WTO). In this article, the authors argue that while in principle private global regulatory trade regimes do not fall under WTO jurisdiction, in practice they are difficult to keep separate. They therefore have the potential to become a concern within the WTO, not only in legal terms, but also from a political perspective because private global regulatory schemes may (re)introduce the distortions into international trade that WTO rules sought to remove. In some cases, a hybridisation of standards occurs as private standards are recognised by public regulatory structures. National governments may find themselves squeezed between their international obligations and the pressures of their citizens, either to respond to consumer concerns themselves and risk being in conflict with their international obligations or to respond to producers seeking action against ‘private red tape’ which is nominally beyond the scope of the WTO. The article takes as its case study an international business-to-business agri-food standards body, GLOBALG.A.P., and explores the issues that arise for global trade governance from the growth in private regulation.

Agricultural biotechnologies in developing countries and their possible contribution to food security

Latest FAO figures indicate that an estimated 925 million people are undernourished in 2010, representing almost 16% of the population in developing countries. Looking to the future, there are also major challenges ahead from the rapidly changing socio-economic environment (increasing world population and urbanisation, and dietary changes) and climate change. Promoting agriculture in developing countries is the key to achieving food security, and it is essential to act in four ways: to increase investment in agriculture, broaden access to food, improve governance of global trade, and increase productivity while conserving natural resources. To enable the fourth action, the suite of technological options for farmers should be as broad as possible, including agricultural biotechnologies. Agricultural biotechnologies represent a broad range of technologies used in food and agriculture for the genetic improvement of plant varieties and animal populations, characterisation and conservation of genetic resources, diagnosis of plant or animal diseases and other purposes. Discussions about agricultural biotechnology have been dominated by the continuing controversy surrounding genetic modification and its resulting products, genetically modified organisms (GMOs). The polarised debate has led to non-GMO biotechnologies being overshadowed, often hindering their development and application. Extensive documentation from the FAO international technical conference on Agricultural Biotechnologies in Developing Countries (ABDC-10), that took place in Guadalajara, Mexico, on 1-4 March 2010, gave a very good overview of the many ways that different agricultural biotechnologies are being used to increase productivity and conserve natural resources in the crop, livestock, fishery, forestry and agro-industry sectors in developing countries. The conference brought together about 300 policy-makers, scientists and representatives of intergovernmental and international non-governmental organisations, including delegations from 42 FAO Member States. At the end of ABDC-10, the Member States reached a number of key conclusions, agreeing, inter alia, that FAO and other relevant international organisations and donors should significantly increase their efforts to support the strengthening of national capacities in the development and appropriate use of pro-poor agricultural biotechnologies.

Soo Yeon Kim. 2010. Power and the governance of global trade: From the GATT to the WTO (Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press)

At a time when the Doha Round of trade negotiations goes into an agonizing 10th year, taking a fresh look at the lessons learnt from history on power and governance in the multilateral trading system (and the responsibility that goes with it) is certainly an attractive proposition. Unfortunately, Soo Yeon Kim’s inquiry into the driving forces underlying institutional developments from the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) to the World Trade Organization (WTO) offers few new or compelling insights into the challenges that the multilateral trading system faces at the present day. This is not to say that the book does not contain interesting pieces of information and analysis. Overall, however, its eclectic approach does not do justice to the complexities involved in the evolution of the GATT/WTO institutional context, and it is therefore ill-suited to provide a backdrop against which to analyze the constellations of power that confront the system today. The structure of the book is simple: It contains two parts consisting of two chapters each. The first part is qualitative/historical and devoted to an analysis of “Rules.” Chapter one examines the origins of the GATT in an attempt to answer the question “why global trade governance today look[s] the way it does” (p. 23). The second chapter then alleges a persistence of original power relations in the GATT or “endogeneity of power and institutional development” (p. 83). It belabors the principal supplier rule in tariff negotiations and focuses on specific flexibilities in the rules of particular interest to the larger trading powers at the time. Part two, entitled “Consequences,” contains empirical estimations of the effects of the GATT/WTO on varies categories of countries. Chapter three uses data from the inter- and post-war period to demonstrate the concentration of trade benefits from the GATT on a few major countries and the continuity of traditional trade relationships established in the context of inter-war trade blocs. Chapter four takes a long haul (jumping several decades of GATT history) to finally arrive at the WTO. Again, some quantitative analysis is offered that is claimed to demonstrate the continued existence of a

Evolution and Institutional Symbiosis of Global Trade Governance

Evolution and Institutional Symbiosis of Global Trade Governance

New powers in the club: the challenges of global trade governance

The Doha Development Agenda (DDA) – the first trade round to be negotiated under the umbrella of the World Trade Organization (WTO), and the ninth in the post-war multilateral trading system – has been dogged by recurrent deadlock. But the stasis surrounding the Doha negotiations should not be mistaken for stasis in the WTO. The world that the WTO was created to govern has been changing rapidly, and, unlike many other international organizations, the WTO has proved unusually responsive to these changes. The most important has been the shift in the economic balance of power, with the emergence of the new powers that have come to be popularly known as the BRICs. Unlike other organizations, such as the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the World Bank or the United Nations (UN) Security Council, that have been slow to adapt their decision-making structures to reflect these ground-level changes, the WTO has welcomed Brazil, India and China (the BICs) into the core of its decision-making. Moreover, many of these institutional changes within the organization are not a knee-jerk reaction to the financial and economic crisis, but predate it. As a result, the WTO today looks quite different from the ‘rich man’s club’ of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), which was dominated by the old Quad (the European Union (EU), the United States (USA), Canada and Japan). Interestingly, however, this ability of the WTO to adapt to changing external imperatives has generated mixed results. In this article, I address the question: What impact has the emergence of the new powers of the BICs had on the WTO?

Statecraft, trade and strategy: toward a new global order

The international institutions that have governed global trade since the end of World War II have lost their effectiveness, and global trade governance is fractured. The need for new institutions is obvious, and yet, few proposals seem to be on offer. The key to understanding the global trading order lies in uncovering the relationship between trade and the State, and how the inner constitution of statecraft drives the architecture of the global order and requires structural changes as the State traverses successive cycles. The current trade order, focused on the liberalisation of trade in goods and services and the management of related issues, is predicated on policies and practices that were the product of a global trading order of the 20th century modern nation-states. Today, a new form of the State – the post-modern State – is evolving. In this article, the authors propose a new trade norm – the enablement of global economic opportunity – and a new institution – the trade council – to overhaul the global trading order.

EU trade relations with Emerging Asia: identifying the issues

Trade interdependence between Europe and Asia has rapidly increased in recent years. Europe–Asia trade flows now constitute a ‘third link’ in the global economy. As trade expands, however, global trade governance has declined and free trade agreements (FTAs) have increased. Hence, the Global Europe strategy has been designed to enhance trade relations with emerging Asia which is the most dynamic region in the global economy today. But Asia’s model of export led growth leaves it more exposed to shocks emanating from outside the region than ever before raising questions about its sustainability. Deep integration agreements between Europe and Asia are needed to foster economic growth. They also need a development dimension to help Asian countries address their key development challenges.

J. J. Kirton and M. J. Trebilcock 2004, Hard Choices, Soft Law: Voluntary Standards in Global Trade, Environment and Social Governance

Kirton and Trebilcock have taken on an issue that poses as much of a challenge for researchers as it does for policy-makers. Should international law be ‘‘hard’’ or ‘‘soft’’? What are the advantages of one over the other and how do they interact? The editors set out three objectives for this volume: first, to explore ‘‘how, how much, and where voluntary standards and informal institutions have worked, by themselves and in tandem with highly legalised and organised hard law organisations’’; second, to identify ‘‘why soft law standards and institutions have worked’’; and third, to point to ‘‘how voluntary standards and informal institutions might and should be used’’ (p. 7). Through this emphasis, they contribute to the steadily growing literature in international relations and global (and multi-level) governance that takes soft law seriously. This is in contrast to realist perspectives that disregard soft law on the assumption that powerful actors such as states and multinational corporations have no reason to be influenced by rules without formal enforcement mechanisms. It is also a departure from legal analyses that downplay soft law for the simple reason that it is not formally international law, i.e., is not considered to be law by the International Court of Justice, which recognizes only treaty-based or customary law. This volume shows how much insight can be gained when moving beyond an ad hoc approach to the study of isolated case studies and instead consider a larger field of cases across three different regimes. The volume is divided into an introduction followed by four sections. The first three of these consider the standard setting for sustainable forestry, labour, and corporate responsibility, respectively, and the final section returns to broader questions of international institutions and soft law. The introduction describes the background for the debate on the soft/hard law choice, which stems from increasing frustration with burdensome international and national legalisation processes that create binding commitments, and from the concurrent flourishing of more voluntary policy instruments such as standards and codes of conduct. In constructing working definitions of hard and soft law, the editors draw on the literature on international legalisation, such as Abbott and Snidal (2000), who distinguish

Může být regionální obchodní integrace stavebním kamenem celosvětového řízení obchodu?

Některé teoretické směry se zabývají možností multilateralizace regionálních přístupů a vybudování celosvětově fungujícího systému pravidel na základě regionalismu. Tyto tendence se promítají i do oblasti mezinárodního obchodu. Základním problémem mnohostranného obchodního systému, zastřešovaného Světovou obchodní organizací, je však rozsah politického prostoru, kterého se vlády států nechtějí vzdát ve prospěch celosvětového řízení obchodu. I když v současné době mnohostranný obchodní systém a další mnohostranná liberalizace obchodu čelí řadě překážek, regionalismus není alternativou, která by pomohla státům prosadit jejich obchodní zájmy. Naopak, bilaterální preferenční obchodní dohody poškozují ve svém důsledku hospodářskou soutěž, zkreslují obchodní prostředí a podkopávají mnohostranný obchodní systém.

Governing Through Markets. Forest Certification and the Emergence of Non-State Authority * Hard Choices, Soft Law: Voluntary Standards in Global Trade, Environment and Social Governance

Governing Through Markets. Forest Certification and the Emergence of Non-State Authority * Hard Choices, Soft Law: Voluntary Standards in Global Trade, Environment and Social Governance

The WTO in crisis: lessons learned from the Doha negotiations on the environment

Even before the Doha Round of international trade talks in the World Trade Organisation (WTO) had been suspended in July 2006, there was little sign of progress in the negotiations on the relationship between WTO rules and multilateral environmental agreements (MEAs). If the Round is resumed, this and many other important issues on the WTO agenda will have to take a back seat while the big ticket items—agriculture and market access—are resolved. Meanwhile, governments acting outside the WTO will continue to agree to new MEA commitments that relate to trade policy without a clear understanding of how the design and implementation of those commitments is affected by WTO rules. This article examines some of the options for governments to clarify the relationship between WTO rules and ME As, both inside and outside the WTO. It sets out the nature and experience of the relationship, before examining ways in which governments in the WTO and in the UN system could work towards better global governance of trade and sustainable development.