World Trade Organization Members Research Articles

Environmental effects of GATT/WTO membership: an empirical evaluation

ABSTRACTOne of the great questions for scholars of international relations and economics concerns the relationship between the World Trade Organization (WTO) and the natural environment. Does membership in the multilateral trade regime constrain environmental regulation and increase the environmental burden of national economies? Do countries pay a heavy environmental price for trade liberalization? Although this question has been debated extensively, there is little statistical evidence to contribute the debate. We provide a comprehensive statistical analysis of the environmental effects of joining the multilateral trade regime. We collected data on a variety of environmental policies, institutions, and outcomes that should be influenced by the General Agreementon Tariffs and Trade (GATT)/WTO membership if the predictions of environmental pessimists or optimists are valid. A wide range of statistical models designed to identify the causal effect of the GATT/WTO on the environmental indicators shows that joining the GATT/WTO does not have negative effects on environmental quality.

Access to Essential Medicine: Making a Case for Compulsory Licensing of Pharmaceutics in Pakistan

Access to essential medicine has been a serious issue in the low income countries. Statistics show that many a patient dies in Pakistan due to lack of access to essential medicine. Pakistan is member of World Trade Organization. It fulfills its obligations towards protection of intellectual property right and by well formulated rules and policies. However, the well-being of its people with regard to health represents a grave scenario. After establishing the fact of appalling scenario of health on one hand and the growth of pharmaceutical industry on the other the study highlights the flexibilities in international legal regime against monopolistic practice of patent holder. It discusses some of the instances of grant of Compulsory Licensing. After examining the legal frame work of Pakistan, it concluded in favour of grant of Compulsory Licensing in appropriate cases without risking its obligation under WTO.

WTO Questions India’s Plan to Revive Farm Sector

The farm support plans announced by India and the United States have created a lot of noise, mainly among the developed nations with surplus agriculture produces. These are under the scrutiny by the World Trade Organization members in WTO’s quarterly agriculture committee meeting on June 25-26. Specifically the European Union and Australia has asked India to explain the Modi’s proposal to spend Rs 25 lakh crore on agriculture and rural development and doubling farmers’ incomes by 2022 as part of Rs 100 lakh crore, five-year infrastructure development plan. Even the US is out asking questions about India’s 5% export subsidy for non-Basmati rice as well as increasing purchase of wheat at higher minimum support prices by the Indian Government even when India has record wheat stockpile.

Can the Intellectual Property-Human Rights Framework Bridge the Gap Between Vietnam’s Legal Reality and Rhetoric?

In January 2007, Vietnam joined the World Trade Organization (WTO). It was viewed as a landmark step forward for a country having a free market only since 1986. For Vietnam, gaining membership in the WTO created an obligation to ascribe to the WTO-administered Agreement on the Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property (TRIPS), the multilateral treaty currently guiding international IP law.1 While Vietnam has now nominally adopted TRIPS-style laws, enforcement of those laws is virtually nonexistent, making Vietnam one of the world’s foremost piracy hotspots. Although TRIPS did not create Vietnam’s piracy problems, it has done nothing to ameliorate their impact. Furthermore, it has undermined key aspects of Vietnam’s development, such as the dissemination of knowledge, access to food and medicine, and respect for the rule of law. Generally, TRIPS harms less developed countries (LDCs), spurring these countries and Non-Government Organizations (NGO’s) to speak out against the regime. However, the WTO and the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), the traditional international IP institution, are deadlocked because of the global growth of Intellectual Property rights (IPR) and subsequent resistance to this growth. Parties intending to weaken the TRIPS regime have turned to other forums to advance their priorities. One such forum is international human rights (HR) law. The convergence of IP and HR holds great promise for rebalancing the international IP system by allowing greater power of self- determination to LDCs. However, the flexibility embraced by the IP-HR framework requires that the unique political, economic, and cultural characteristics of each country be taken into account in developing an IP system. The many differences among LDCs could thus ultimately derail the burgeoning framework. While a patchwork of bilateral IP agreements and treaties characterized international IP before TRIPS, it is unclear whether such a framework is workable after TRIPS. This paper will use Vietnam as a test case for the nascent IP-HR framework, exploring both the international political climate and particular national characteristics that might prevent the IP-HR framework from achieving success. More specifically, this paper will focus on how Vietnam’s Confucian culture, socialist government, potential for economic growth, and eagerness to court Western investment will stress the developing IP-HR framework and may even prevent the goals of the IP-HR framework from being realized in Vietnam and elsewhere. Part II discusses Vietnam’s path to WTO membership, detailing the opening of the Vietnamese market in 1986, Vietnam’s IP and trade relations with the U.S., and the harmful effects on Vietnam of the trade- centric IP prerogative espoused by TRIPS. Part III discusses how the harms caused by TRIPS have spurred LDCs to retaliate by refocusing international IP to incorporate both proprietary and human rights concerns, leading to the development of an alternative IP-HR framework. The origins and current interpretations of the burgeoning IP-HR framework are discussed here as well as current developments emanating from the framework to provide a background for the specific application of the framework to, Vietnam. Part IV discusses implications of the IP- HR framework for Vietnam and whether Vietnam would likely welcome the framework’s goals, focusing on the country’s political, economic, and cultural characteristics. Part V concludes. [1] Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights, Apr. 15, 1994, Marrakesh Agreement Establishing the World Trade Organization, Annex 1C, Legal Instruments – Results of the Uruguay Round [hereinafter TRIPS].

Piercing the Veil of Foreign Legal Services in China

China has revised and enacted measures to implement its legal services commitments; however, these measures have also led to the World Trade Organization (WTO) compliance concerns from other WTO members. Meanwhile, local decrees have been promulgated to allow deeper collaborations between local and foreign firms than China’s commitments to the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS). This situation is confusing understandings of foreign legal services in China. To pierce the veil and determine what is occurring, this article assesses whether China’s domestic measures are consistent with its WTO obligations, analyses the factors causing trade limitations, and envisages a mechanism to further the liberalization of foreign legal services. Moreover, this article provides a comprehensive understanding of foreign legal services in China.

How Should WTO Members React to Their WTO Crises?

AbstractSince 2017, the United States (US) and other World Trade Organization (WTO) members have been violating their legal duties and democratic mandates given by national parliaments to maintain the WTO Appellate Body (AB) as legally prescribed in Article 17 of the WTO Dispute Understanding (DSU). Article 17 defines the AB as being ‘composed of seven persons’, with vacancies being ‘filled as they arise’. Sections 2 and 3 explain why none of the reasons offered by the US for its blocking of the (re)appointment of AB candidates – on grounds unrelated to the personal qualifications of the candidates – can justify the illegal disruptions of the WTO legal and dispute settlement system. EU trade diplomats must exercise leadership using the existing legal powers and duties of the WTO Ministerial Conference and General Council under Article IX WTO – if necessary, based on ‘a majority of the votes cast’ – to complete the WTO selection procedures for filling AB vacancies and protect the AB as legally defined in Article 17 DSU. Sections 4 and 5 explain why the competition, social policy, and rule-of-law principles underlying European ‘ordo-liberalism’ offer coherent strategies for overcoming the WTO governance crises by limiting hegemonic abuses of both US neo-liberalism and Chinese state-capitalism.

WTO Jurisprudence on Protection of Marine Living Resources: Policy Considerations for the Chinese Belt and Road Initiative

The World Trade Organization (WTO) aims at free trade between states. The Chinese Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) supports these aims. By improving infrastructure on the Maritime Silk Road, it facilitates the transport of goods. But the likely increase in transport of goods on the Silk Road may have a negative impact on the environment. This paper addresses whether states can use environmental concerns under WTO law as a legitimate obstacle to trade on the Maritime Silk Road. Under WTO law, WTO Members may apply trade-restricting measures to protect the environment. The balance between the protection of the environment and free trade has materialized in a number of cases in the WTO dispute settlement system. This paper focuses on two questions. First, it discusses whether a state can apply WTO law to protect marine living resources if they are outside the territory of the state. Second, it discusses whether pollution from transport of goods can be a legitimate reason to apply the WTO exceptions to protect the environment. The WTO quasi-judiciaries have accepted harvest methods of shrimps, harvest methods of tuna, and seal hunting as legitimate reasons, but have so far not tried pollution from transport. The paper concludes that states may protect migrating marine living resources outside their territories, and that restrictions on transport to protect marine living resources is a legitimate policy under WTO law. However, the legitimate basis for limiting vessels is reduced if there is strong enforcement of the environmental policies, which China has suggested in its BRI policies, and if China in general engages widely in multilateral environmental treaties. However, should China not take a lead in the protection of marine living resources and in seeking compliance with international environmental law, China becomes vulnerable to other states’ protectionist measures under the guise of protection of the marine living resources.

Trade Multilateralism and National Security: Antinomies in the History of the International Trade Organization

Today, there are an unprecedented number of disputes at the World Trade Organization (WTO) involving national security. The dramatic rise in trade disputes involving national security has resuscitated debate over the degree of discretion afforded to WTO Members as to when and how to invoke Article XXI, the Security Exception, of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), with binding effect. As this paper will argue, archival investigation into state practice for the construction of the security exception within the framework of the International Trade Organization (ITO) produces a story with a deep context that illuminates the plausible legal interpretive steps involved in invoking Article XXI GATT. Due to the overwhelming influence the United States had in designing and constructing the exception, U.S. practice offers a revealing lens by which to study the history of Article XXI. The U.S. was the main architect in the design and placement of the security exception within the ITO. To the extent that Article XXI GATT is meant to clarify the bounds between trade multilateralism and national security, this paper seeks to explore what the text means through an historical investigation into U.S. practice, and the multifaceted considerations that shaped what the U.S. intended to convey with the language, phrasing, and placement of the security exception in the original multilateral trade bargain.

The Supremacy of the Dispute Settlement Mechanism (DSM) under the World Trade Organization (WTO)

The existence of inequality and poverty in some countries doubted the contribution of the WTO. The overwhelming spirit of national interest through the imposition of discriminatory and protective measures has deteriorated the WTO. Given its role for enforcing trade commitments, the dispute settlement mechanism is crucial to save the future of WTO. This paper aims to analyse the existence of the dispute settlement mechanism of WTO, whether it is still supreme in upholding the vision of trade liberalization. This paper argues that the supremacy of this mechanism has ensured the future of WTO by looking at two parameters. Firstly, it has a ruled-based character with a high level of legalism. Next, by looking at the decision of the Panel and the Appellate Body, the dispute settlement mechanism has effectively controlled the overwhelming spirit of national interest. This mechanism shows its supremacy by limiting the capacity of the WTO member states to impose discriminatory and protective measures, particularly related to public morals exception and cultural concern.

Critical analysis of the case of Kazakhstan’s accession to the World Trade Organization

Kazakhstan’s application to join the World Trade Organization began less than five years after achieving full independence from the Soviet Union, when economy of the country required reforms and progress. The accession process differs on a case-by-case basis depending on the country’s economy and policy. In comparison with General agreement trade and tariffs, the World Trade Organization accession has become more political due to the negotiation issues subject to the domestic politics of the country and geopolitical considerations World Trade Organization Membership is regarded as a fundamental step towards Kazakhstan’s full integration into the international economy. As a hydrocarbon rich state, the government realized that by remaining outside the World Trade Organization, the country would lose economic opportunities to take benefits of global market. Kazakhstan’s involvement in the international trade through the World Trade Organization would commence a new wave of economic growth. Nineteen years later on, the Republic of Kazakhstan has become the full member of the World Trade Organization. In this article the complex and lengthy process of Kazakhstani accession to the World Trade Organization will be explored. Specifically, referring to Kazakhstan’s accession case, the essay will critically analyse some of the main issues of accession in terms of legal perspective view.Keу words: General agreement trade and tariffs, World Trade Organization, accession negotiation, the Marrakesh agreement, multilateral trade agreement.

Are Retaliatory Trade Measures Justified under the WTO Agreement on Safeguards?

Abstract In March 2018, the USA adopted measures to increase tariffs on a range of imported steel and aluminum products, claiming that the measures are justified for its national security concerns. Several World Trade Organization Members, including the European Union, India, Russia, Turkey, and China, have argued that the US measures are in violation of WTO rules on safeguard measures and adopted retaliatory measures invoking Article 12.5 of the Agreement on Safeguards. The USA argues that its measures do not constitute safeguard measures under WTO rules, and, therefore, the retaliatory measures are not justified under the SA. This article reviews relevant cases and examines whether the US measures are safeguard measures under the SA and whether the retaliatory measures are also justified under the SA. The article also discusses the need for regulatory reform to address the issues with unilateral trade measures and retaliation.

Path to judicial activism? The use of “relevant rules of international law” by the WTO Appellate Body

The Appellate Body (AB) of the World Trade Organization (WTO) is currently under the concrete threat of ceasing its activities in the near future. This is the result of a series of unaddressed criticisms by some of the members of the organization, in particular the United States, regarding the alleged activist role that the AB has played. These criticisms involve a number of issues regarding interpretative practices developed by the organ. Against this backdrop, the present paper tackles the use of “relevant rules of international law” which are external to the WTO covered agreements, in particular through Article 31(3)(c) of the Vienna Convention on the Law of the Treaties, the provision codifying the so-called “principle of systemic integration”. It studies the reports in which reference to this provision was made and whether the use of non-WTO rules has been made in an expansive or limited way with respect to the mandate of the AB. It also assesses the reception of these reports by the WTO membership in the meetings of the Dispute Settlement Body. It is concluded that, while recourse to external sources under the VCLT provision could represent a potential source of expansion of the AB material applicable law in a way that could displease the WTO membership, the AB has transitioned from a progressive approach which marked the beginning of its functioning to a more narrow approach to the applicability of non-WTO sources in the more recent caselaw.

Supply of Policy Information in the World Trade Organization: Cross-National Compliance with One-Time and Regular Notification Obligations, 1995–2014

AbstractThis text presents the first systematic quantitative descriptive and explanatory account of World Trade Organization (WTO) member states’ compliance with their one-time and regular notification obligations. The system of around 170 notifications, through which states are obliged to provide to the WTO relevant information on their policies, constitutes a key mechanism of transparency in the global trade regime. Based on data for the one-time and regular obligations from the years 1995–2014, we seek to map and explain the variation in the degree to which states comply with these obligations. Descriptively, we identify enormous differences in the compliance values of states, ranging from compliance well above 80% to below 20%. To explain those differences, we test five theoretical explanations that concentrate on the trade policy preferences of states and on their institutional characteristics. The empirical findings support four of the tested explanations. In particular, they highlight the relevance of states’ administrative capacities and membership in international organizations (IOs). In addition, the empirical analysis shows that compliance levels are strongly positively connected with the economic size of the members.

BRICS AND CLICKS

Projections for the global economy frequently center on the BRIC countries: Brazil, Russia, India, and China. As futurists and economists alike define and re-define both formal and informal coalitions (for example, by broadening the R in BRIC to include all Eastern European economies or instead re-directing the discussion to G-8 countries or to World Trade Organization members), the education profiles of the individual nations sometimes resemble economic indicators: what is imported, what is exported, and what is the potential for expansion. Higher education, and specifically distance learning (the Clicks element of this paper), can already be charted in these terms for some nations. This paper describes the current role of distance learning in countries described as growing economies and proposes a typology for describing change as additional data become available. The paper informs readers of global developments in distance education, using the BRIC nations as examples.

TURK-SWITCH: The Tariff-Leverage and Legal Case for Turkey’s Switch from EU–Turkey Customs Union to FTAs with the European Union and Beyond

Soon after becoming a World Trade Organization Member, Turkey established a Customs Union with the European Union, its biggest trade partner. Despite negotiating an average 42.6 percent tariff on slightly more than one-third of industrial goods—leaving remaining industrial goods unbound from World Trade Organization commitments—Turkey, pursuant to the Customs Union, eliminated all tariffs on European Union industrial imports. Turkey also implemented the significantly lower European Union Common External Tariffs—bindings averaging 4.1 percent—on all industrial imports from other World Trade Organization Members. In return, Turkey expected the Customs Union to be the ticket to eventual, full European Union membership. Following the non-binding yet politically significant July 2017 European Union Parliament vote suspending accession talks and the recent European Union Council ‘conclusion’ foreclosing negotiations toward ‘modernization’ of the Customs Union, Turkey’s hopes for membership or a less asymmetric Customs Union have faded. This article explains why Turkey’s switch from Customs Union to pursuing free trade agreements with the European Union and other countries would advance its overall trade interests and sketches how this move could be operationalized, both legally and transactionally. (JEL: F13, F53, F55).

WTO Dispute Settlement: Can We Go Back Again?

The world's twenty-year experiment with a rule-based international trading order is most likely ending. Trade wars are raging again for the first time in two decades as World Trade Organization (WTO) members unilaterally impose and counterimpose sanctions. In Geneva, the WTO Appellate Body, whose existence is essential to the functioning of the WTO Dispute Settlement Understanding (DSU), is on a trajectory to shut down in December 2020. For all the fireworks, however, many commentators retain an optimism that the recent events will be a passing phase and that the world will return to a more law-oriented trading system after the present crisis.

Pristupanje Kine Svetskoj trgovinskoj organizaciji - proces i efekti

The aim of the paper is to present and explain the changes that have arisen in China's trade and economy during the accession to the World Trade Organization (WTO) and during its membership in this organization. The article consists of four parts and a conclusion. At the beginning of the paper, China's negotiations with the GATT are briefly outlined, as well as the main obstacles for not accomplishing these negotiations successfully. The second part deals with the negotiations for the WTO membership and the most important changes China's economy has undergone to meet the membership requirements. This part of the paper also outlines the most important barriers to the membership, as well as economic reforms and the growth of the non-state economy in China. The third part explains how China, upon its accession to the WTO, has immediately involved in the Doha Development Round negotiations. This country became a member of several negotiating groups within the WTO and signed certain WTO agreements. Moreover, China has undergone a Trade Policy Review several times, which is a periodic obligation of every WTO member. The final section describes the most important changes in China's trade that have come out from full membership in the WTO. During the sixteen years of its membership in the WTO, China has achieved a never-before-seen rate of trade growth and took the leading position in the world trade. At the end of the paper, we conclude that China has fully integrated into the world economy and that becoming a member of the World Trade Organization has played a major role in this achievement.

The Security Exception In WTO Law: Entering a New Era

For seventy years, the security exception in the multilateral trade regime has mostly lain dormant. The exception first appeared in the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade 1947 (GATT 1947), before being incorporated in the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade 1994 (GATT 1994) upon the creation of the World Trade Organization (WTO). However, security exceptions also exist in several other WTO provisions, including the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) and the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS). Until recently, perhaps through a combination of WTO member restraint and fortuitous circumstances, WTO panels have not had to make a definitive ruling on the meaning and scope of these exceptions. Yet, suddenly, the security exception lies at the center of multiple explosive disputes, posing a potential threat to the WTO's very existence.

How Should the EU and Other WTO Members React to Their WTO Governance and WTO Appellate Body Crises?

Since 2017, the United States (US) and other World Trade Organization (WTO) members violate their legal duties and democratic mandates given by national parliaments to maintain the WTO Appellate Body (AB) as legally prescribed in Article 17 of the WTO Dispute Understanding (DSU), i.e. as being ‘composed of seven persons’, with vacancies being ‘filled as they arise’. This contribution argues that none of the reasons offered by the US for its blocking of the (re)appointment of AB candidates - on grounds unrelated to the personal qualifications of the candidates - can legally justify its disruptions of the WTO legal and dispute settlement system. Also the European Union (EU) has offered no convincing justification of its failure to protect ‘strict observance of international law’ in it external relations, as required by Article 3 of the Lisbon Treaty on European Union (TEU) and by Article IX:1 WTO Agreement (‘where a decision cannot be arrived at by consensus, the matter at issue shall be decided by voting’). The 2018 ‘Concept Paper’ prepared by the EU Commission on ‘WTO modernization’ indicates no strategy for the obvious problem that the EU objective of ‘preserving and deepening the rules-based multilateral system’, including ‘more effective and transparent dispute settlement including the Appellate Body’, is inconsistent with the US strategies underlying US blocking of the AB jurisdiction by preventing the appointment of AB judges, a strategy which was previously applied by the US for blocking third-party adjudication under Chapter 20 of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). Trade diplomats have no democratic mandate for disrupting the AB jurisdiction by illegally reducing the number of AB members to one single judge by December 2019 and, thereby, undermining the WTO legal and dispute settlement system. EU trade diplomats must exercise leadership for using the existing legal powers and duties of the WTO Ministerial Conference and General Council under Article IX:1 WTO – if necessary, based on ‘a majority of the votes cast’ - to initiate and complete the WTO selection procedures for filling AB vacancies and protect the AB as legally defined in Article 17 DSU. Article IX.2 could be used for authoritative interpretations ‘taken by a three-fourths majority of the Members’ confirming the collective duties of WTO members to fill AB vacancies in case of illegal blocking of AB nominations. WTO law foresees similar majority decisions for the appointment of the WTO Director-General; such majority decisions are necessary for preventing illegal de facto amendments of the WTO legal system, and do not set a precedent for future WTO majority voting on discretionary, political issues, which most WTO diplomats reject as a ‘nuclear option’. As suggested by European ordo-liberalism, citizens and democratic institutions must hold trade politicians democratically and legally more accountable for complying with their legislative mandates to implement and modernize, but not to destroy WTO law and dispute settlement.

Third Strike: The WTO Panel Reports Upholding Australia’s Tobacco Plain Packaging Scheme

Abstract Two of the four disputes against Australia’s tobacco plain packaging in the World Trade Organization (WTO) have been resolved, with the adoption of the Panel Reports upholding Australia’s tobacco plain packaging scheme with respect to Cuba and Indonesia. The fifth dispute, brought by Ukraine, was previously abandoned. The Panel’s decision deserves close examination, particularly regarding the balance between WTO Members’ legitimate policy objectives and restrictions on trade or on the use of trademarks. The Panel’s approach to the fundamental concepts of trade-restrictiveness and unjustifiability did not conform with the arguments of Australia or the complainants. These areas represent core aspects of the ongoing appeals by Honduras and the Dominican Republic. Although Australia did not appeal, its own arguments before the Panel provide further insights into the Panel’s approach. The significance of the Panel Reports is heightened by the continuing United States blockage of appointments to the WTO Appellate Body.