Multilateral Context Research Articles

The EU Strategy in Tackling Organized Crime in the Framework of Multilateralism

Transnational organized crime (TOC) is dramatically increasing its ability to perform at a global level. There is not yet, however, a common definition of organized crime, nor a common strategy to fight it. Even though it is currently included in the political agenda on a global level and often associated with transnational terrorism and security issues, organized crime is not an exclusive policy priority. The differences in position among the most important political actors – the US, the EU, the EU member states and the UN – are significant and confused. The EU, in particular, has developed an advanced strategy based either on single member states' experience or on shared principles and perceptions. The main assumption here is that in the broader context of multilateralism and by respecting the leading global actors' view (that of the UN and the US), the EU has built its own strategy, which constitutes an added value to the global struggle against TOC. In the first part of this article, TOC will be analysed as a global threat and towards other challenges as global terrorism, ethnic wars and failed states. In the second part, the EU strategy will be analysed and compared to the most important positions and strategies developed by the leading political actors. The most important changes introduced through the Lisbon Treaty will be stressed as well. The last part of the article presents some conclusions on the perceptions of organized crime within political agendas at the global level.

Beyond asymmetry: cooperation, conflict and globalisation in Mexico-China relations

Academic commentary has long emphasised the asymmetry in Mexico-China relations. In particular, much attention has focussed since the early 1990s particularly from the Mexican side on the economic imbalance in trade and investment that has become and remains acute with the expansion of the economy of the People's Republic of China. This is though far from the only sense in which the relationship between the two countries is asymmetrical. There is also a severe imbalance in the relative importance of politics and economics as determinants of this relationship for both China and Mexico. The Mexican Government seems to be more concerned with its economic relationship with China. In contrast, the PRC Government seems more concerned with its political relationship with Mexico. Moreover, there is a further asymmetry in the respective significance that each appears to have to the other as a partner. Mexico plays a small role in China's outlook but China looms large in Mexico's worldview. Identification of a number of cross-cutting asymmetrical relationships suggests that a bilateral perspective may not be the most effective for understanding the interaction or potential interaction between Mexico and China. On the contrary, there is more logic to the elements of cooperation and conflict between Mexico and China when their relationship is viewed in the wider, multilateral context of globalisation.

Politique commerciale commune et protection juridique de l'innovation

THE COMMON COMMERCIAL POLICY Since a few years, the European Union (EU) has taken several initiatives to promote and protect innovation. According to the European Commission, innovation is the prerequisite for the competitiveness of the European industries and businesses and, furthermore, for growth and employment. Thus, innovation has been given a central place in the Lisbon strategy which influences national and European policies and actions. In this context, intellectual property rights (IPRs) enforcement has become a priority in fighting counterfeiting and piracy which have increased in a worrisome way. The achievement of the single market is the first legal basis to organize a uniform system of IPRs by creating titles that coexist with national ones. But, in the context of globalization, the EU does also deal with external trade policy as part of the external aspects of the Lisbon strategy. The interface between external trade and IPRs appeared in 1986 in the framework of the Uruguay Round. But, at that time, the European Community had no competence on this subject. The Amsterdam and Nice treaties tried to give it the competence in the commercial aspects of intellectual property. Such initiative resulted in a lack of visibility, as its competence was shared with the Member States. As the Lisbon treaty has clarified its competences, the European Union has now an exclusive competence in the commercial aspects of intellectual property and the Council can act by a qualified majority to conclude agreements on this subject. Without waiting the entry into force of the Lisbon treaty, the European Commission has decided that IPRs were one of the new growth sectors that the EU would include in the foundations of its common commercial policy. The EU maintains its commitment to multilateralism and is involved in the Doha Round which tries to improve the Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) agreement in line with development priorities. In that context, the UE has a unique status of full member next to its member states and tries to get a better protection of geographical indications. But, as the negotiations face strong oppositions between the parties on the agricultural subject, the European Commission has decided, through free trade agreements (FTAs) to get stronger and stricter provisions on IPRs. By concluding FTAs, the EU seeks to obtain extended engagements than in the multilateral context. This is also a way for the UE to export its own standards of IPRs protection. Bilateralism is considered a complement to multilateralism and the European Commission wants to use the same tools as its “competitors”, such as the United States. On the basis of several criterias, it has identified countries which could become its trading partners through FTAs. The study of the recent agreements between the EU and the Cariforum group and with South Korea reveal deeper engagements from the EU’s trading partners to provide an IP protection similar to the one in the EU. Furthermore, since 2007, negotiations are engaged with ASEAN and India which have qualified as priorities for the conclusion of new generations of FTAs. The European Commission seems to be all the more determined to improve through bilateral cooperation the enforcement of IPRs as the “Europe 2020” strategy maintains the priority on innovation and the end of the Doha Round is not predictable in a middle term. But this position may not be conformed to the EU’s international objectives.

(Why) Should Current Account Balances Be Reduced?

This note discusses two complex issues. First, why might a country want to reduce its current account deficit or surplus? And second, why might the international community ask for more? In general, there are both domestic and multilateral reasons for countries to reduce current account deficits and surpluses. We identify three instances in which the case for reducing imbalances rests on multilateral considerations: the cross-border effects of sudden stops, unfair competitive advantage, and worries about global demand if part of the world economy is in a liquidity trap. We briefly discuss the implications of our analysis for the setting of rules of the game in a multilateral context.

Turning Points in Multilateral Trade Negotiations on Intellectual Property

Detailed chronologies of events that transpired during the discussion of intellectual property issues (TRIPS) in the GATT Uruguay Round and prior to and during the WTO Doha Ministerial are used to trace the unfolding negotiation processes through time. Of particular interest are departures from earlier trends in the chronologies: A departure is defined as a clear and self-evident change from earlier events or patterns in the form of an impactful decision taken by one or more parties. By coding the causes (precipitants) and effects (consequences) of the departures, we perform a turning points analysis: These three-part sequences reveal the triggers and impacts of departures during the extended TRIPS negotiation process. The analyses will allow a comparison of the patterns that unfolded during the two phases of TRIPS negotiations. This comparison will highlight the breakthroughs that occurred during the Uruguay Round and the crises that emerged later, prior to and during the Doha Ministerial. Improving the effectiveness of multilateral trade negotiations depends in part on understanding how critical turning points emerge. This article also has implications more generally for the way that comparative analyses of international negotiation are performed and for the effectiveness of negotiating in the multilateral context.

Filling the EEC leadership vacuum? The creation of the European Council in 1974

This article deals with a significant institutional step in the history of European integration, namely the legally non-binding decision to hold EEC heads of state and government meetings on a regular basis. It will concentrate on the negotiations leading to this decision from mid-1974 until the formal creation of the European Council at the Paris Summit on 9 and 10 December 1974. Drawing upon extensive research in multiple national and EEC archives, this article will embed the analysis of the French initiative in a multilateral context of policy-making and bargaining. It will first try to see to what extent the nine EEC member states shared a common diagnosis about heads of state and government meetings. Then it will delve into the negotiations about the institutionalisation of EEC summits, and finally it will try to explain why, in spite of a number of disagreements, the European Council was eventually created at the Paris Summit. This article will show that the creation of the European Council was more complex than is usually perceived, and highlight wider perennial themes of European integration history.

Financial Sector Regulation and Financial Services Liberalization at the Crossroads: The Relevance of International Financial Standards in WTO Law

This article provides an assessment of the relevance in World Trade Organization (WTO) law of the international financial standards set by the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision (Basel Committee), the International Organization of Securities Commissions (IOSCO), and the International Association of Insurance Supervisors (IAIS), international cooperation for a bringing together domestic financial regulators. This analysis gauges the potential use of these international financial standards in a potential future dispute settlement involving the domestic regulation of financial services. It demonstrates their relevance in WTO law as well as their both considerable and contested role in the institutional practice of the organization, thereby highlighting the incentives for regulatory harmonization that are embedded in the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS). The difficulties are mainly centred on the Basel Committee due to its limited membership, therefore not meeting the conditions of validity for the recognition of external standards laid down in the GATS, and also leading to the reluctance of some developing countries unwilling to endorse standards to which they have not previously agreed. More broadly, this study reflects on the potential tensions between plurilateral regulatory strategies and the multilateral context of the WTO and highlights the insufficient coordination between the international legal frameworks for the regulation and for the liberalization of financial services.

Trade integration and within-plant productivity evolution in Chile

We analyze the impact of trade integration on plant TFP using Chilean plant-level data (1982–1999) and 3-digit bilateral trade flows. Our contribution is to disentangle the impact of export and import barriers, estimated as border effects within a multilateral context. A fall in export barriers is positively correlated with plant productivity in traded sectors. The reduction of import barriers, however, can only be associated to productivity improvements in export-oriented sectors. In import-competing sectors a robust positive correlation shows up between plant productivity and protection. We then test several channels linking trade integration and firm productivity.

Troubled Neighbours: Japan's Negative Economic Diplomacy Towards North Korea

AbstractThe importance of economic issues, in a comprehensive multilateral and bilateral context, has been receiving increased attention in writings about the Korean Peninsula lately. This article adds to this debate by analysing Japan's relations with North Korea from an economic diplomacy perspective. The concept of 'negative economic diplomacy' is introduced to understand actions of the Japanese government, which had tried economic engagement in various ways until the early 1990s, but hardened its stance thereafter. Tokyo seems to have come to the conclusion that North Korean rulers are more willing to preserve the status quo than some wish to believe and, consequently, started to use the North Korean threat to justify Japan's controversial military enhancement in a context of uncertainty about the United States' commitment and an increasingly stronger China. is strategy was practised through a negative approach to economic diplomacy of withholding economic benefits—in policy fields ranging from the abductees and normalisation of diplomatic relations, to trade relations, sanctions and the six-way process. Japan's policy was most outspoken from late 2002 until at least mid-2007.

Interest Aggregation, Political Parties, Labour Standards and Trade: Differences in the US and EU Approaches to the Inclusion of Labour Standards in International Trade Agreements

The connection between labour standards and international trade has become a key issue in the relations between industrialized economies and developing countries. Both the US and the EU are advocates of the inclusion of ‘labour standards’ in trade agreements with developing countries, in multilateral, bilateral and unilateral contexts alike. As the prospects of establishing multilateral rules governing the relations between trade and labour within the framework of the World Trade Organization (WTO) have diminished, both trade blocs increasingly focus on bilateral forums to pursue their policy goals. In this article, the objectives are twofold. First of all, we aim at describing the main points of difference between the EU’s and the US’s approach toward the inclusion of labour standards in bilateral trade agreements. In a second step, we will formulate a possible explanation for these differences based on a theoretical model that focuses on the aggregative role of political parties in the context of European and US policy-making on trade.

A level playing field and the space for small states

While designing a project against tax competition, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development has insisted on the establishment of a level playing field. The subjects of this project are predominantly small states with offshore financial centres and few alternatives available to achieve economic development. This paper interrogates the meaning embedded within the term ‘level playing field’ as used in several multilateral contexts, and most particularly in the debate over international tax competition. The conclusion reached is that a level playing field in the global political economy is a mirage with more substance for some states than for others. It also reflects the power asymmetries that remain between states. However, by introducing a greater emphasis on the level playing field as a plane of ‘fairness’, it may be possible to create a more equitable negotiating environment between large and small states.

GATS and the New Developmentalism: Governing Transnational Education

This article introduces a relatively recent development, the inclusion of education as a tradable service under the World Trade Organization's (WTO's) General Agreement on Trade and Services (GATS). I focus on two Trade in Education Services forums—one in Washington, DC (USA), and one in Sydney (Australia)—to investigate the discursive strategies used to promote trade in education in the multilateral context. I identify the truth regimes that are concretized and the strategies used by both state and nonstate actors to define, codify, and delimit the discourse on trade in education. I argue that these strategies help create the conditions for a broader “epistemic lock in,” where various authorities associated with education are steered toward legitimizing a “new developmentalism,” namely, the reconfiguration of trade liberalization as a developmental tool. By framing the liberalization of trade in education in moral terms, as the means to alleviate global poverty and bridge the development divide, the implications of a GATS-sanctioned commercial agenda are rendered invisible. Using governmentality as a theoretical and methodological framework, I begin the inquiry into the discursive reconstruction of transnational education with the question of how ideas about trade liberalization are globalized. If globalization is imagined as flows, then what exactly is flowing across transnational education spaces? What kinds of ideas and practices are being transnationalized, and what are their “biopolitical”1 and geopolitical effects?

Making strategy: Civil–military relations after Iraq

The conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq have revealed the problems that both the United States and Britain confront in formulating strategy. In part this problem is intellectual: strategy is not just about the unilateral implementation of policy, it is also a process applicable in the dynamic and multilateral context of war. However, the difficulties are also institutional. Encumbered with unrealistic models of civil–military relations, the United States and the United Kingdom have allowed their machineries for the making of strategy to atrophy.

Global and EU Agricultural Trade Reform: What is in it for Tanzania, Uganda and Sub-Saharan Africa?

Both the Doha Development Round of trade talks, and recent rulings at the WTO, have placed the EU under increasing pressure to agree to more far-reaching proposals for reform of the European Union's Common Agricultural Policy. The purpose of this paper is to examine to what extent Sub-Saharan African (SSA) economies could gain or lose from EU trade reform, whether undertaken in a unilateral or multilateral context. EU trade reform impacts on SSA countries are also set in the context of potential gains that they may obtain from trade reform by other geographic regions including the SSA countries themselves. The primary economic argument for trade reform is that free trade can be a source of important efficiency gains if a country liberalises its own trade. Free trade is a means for a country to go beyond the constraints of its autarkic production possibilities. However, most SSA economies are classified as Least Developed Countries (LDCs), and it is not likely that they will be obliged to reduce their agricultural trade barriers in the Doha trade round. The principal likely sources of welfare changes from the Doha trade round as it impacts on agricultural trade, for SSA countries, are greater access to rich country markets and the resulting rise in world food prices. Net food exporters will benefit from positive terms of trade effects. However, some SSA exporters will face preference erosion if EU agricultural trade liberalisation causes the EU internal market price to fall and thus reduces the value of their preferential access to the EU market. Also, many SSA economies are net food importers and will face terms of trade losses if world prices rise. Non-LDC developing SSA countries will be obliged to cut their own agricultural tariffs if such cuts for developing countries are part of a Doha round agreement. These factors point to the need for a careful country by country analysis of impacts of trade reform that moves beyond the analysis of relatively heterogeneous large groups such as all LDCs or all SSA countries. This paper aims to determine the sign and strength of the effects of agricultural trade liberalisation on welfare, production and trade of Sub-Saharan African countries. In addition, it poses some more speculative questions about the potential effects on poverty of different trade liberalisation scenarios. The paper has a particular focus on Tanzania and Uganda because of their status as priority countries for Ireland's development assistance programme. Included are a series of partial equilibrium simulations using the UNCTAD Agricultural Trade Policy Simulation Model (ATPSM). These focus on the producer, consumer, and total welfare effects from trade liberalisation. A number of scenarios are developed. These include benchmark scenarios reflecting the potential impacts on SSA countries of unilateral agricultural trade liberalisation by the EU, by the SSA countries themselves, and by other major country groupings. In addition, results are presented of some simulated policy scenarios based on negotiating positions put forward in the Doha round negotiations to date. The recurring pattern in these simulations is that the significant benefits for SSA producers from the higher world prices of agricultural commodities are offset, and typically more than offset, by the losses to consumers, so that total welfare changes are very small or negative. Not all countries follow this pattern however; some experience significant changes in total welfare and these 'exceptions' drive the aggregate total welfare results for the SSA region as a whole.

Methodists and Roman Catholics: Bilateral Dialogue in a Multilateral Context

AbstractWritten from the viewpoint of a long-time participant on the Methodist side, this article traces the course of the dialogue between the World Methodist Council and the Roman Catholic Church since its inception in 1967. After the rather scattered process of the introductory and exploratory early rounds, a more cohesive approach began with the pneumatologically oriented Honolulu Report of 1981. The focus sharpened to ecclesiology with the task the Commission set itself in the Narobi Report of 1986, ‘Towards a Statement on the Church’. Consequently, the following three rounds were occupied at the level of fundamental theology with ‘revelation and faith’, ‘the apostolic tradition’ and ‘teaching authority’. On those bases, the Commission then returned to the questions of how (far) each partner might recognize ‘the Church’ in the other and, as will be seen in the forthcoming Seoul Report of 2006, what each might offer and receive in the ‘exchange of gifts’ that, according to Pope John Paul II's encyclical Ut Unum Sint (1995), should mark ecumenical dialogue along with the ‘exchange of ideas’. The present article locates the dialogue between Methodists and Roman Catholics on the broader ecumenical scene and shows how some of the features of Methodist ecumenism are analogously pertinent also to Anglicans and to Lutherans in their respective self-understandings and in their relations with the Roman Catholic Church.

Determinants of Multilateralism in US Use of Force: State of Economy, Election Cycle, and Divided Government

US presidents used military force 212 times from 1948 to 1998. In 45 of these cases, the force was embedded in a multilateral context. The article distinguishes between procedural multilateralism, where US military operations are endorsed by an international organization, and operational multilateralism, where military actions are coordinated with the armed forces of other countries. In some cases, such as the Korean War and the first Gulf War, the United States obtained UN authorization and created a multinational force. However, there are also partially multilateral cases, in which either political endorsement or execution of the use of force is made by a multilateral approach while the other is subject to unilateralism. This article focuses on the varieties of multilateralism and homes in on exploring why such varieties of multilateralism exist. An original dataset for studying multilateral-unilateral choice in US use of force is analyzed using a multinomial logit model and a bivariate probit model. The analyses suggest that three domestic conditions - recession, election cycle, and divided government - can cause partial multilateralism, since they create different incentives for the president to seek burden-sharing with allies or seek collective legitimacy in international organizations.

Australia and the Commonwealth

The Empire–Commonwealth played a key role in the evolution of Australia's international position. However, the post-1960s Commonwealth has only been of minor significance for Australia. The Commonwealth provides a backdrop for a number of Australia's bilateral relationships, the most important of which are those with Britain, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, Canada, India, Malaysia and Singapore. The multilateral context provided by the Commonwealth is relevant to advancing Australian goals concerning North–South relations, world trade, South Pacific and southern African issues and newer issues such as the ‘war on terrorism’. Australia is a major contributor to Commonwealth aid programmes. The Commonwealth dimension has some relevance to the republican debate in Australia, although it is not a primary concern. Australia is a major participant in the ‘civil society’ aspect of the Commonwealth. The low priority accorded to the modern Commonwealth by Australia is generally a bipartisan matter: the Commonwealth has its uses but is not central to Australia's contemporary international objectives.

The Politics of Deception Forging Peace Treaties in the Face of Domestic Opposition

DEMOCRATIC POLITIES DEEIBERATELY construct institutions and procedures to hold their governments accountable. In the foreign policy realm, this usually involves some degree of legislative participation in the policy process, a ratification procedure for international treaties, and a forum for public review of policies, at a minimum during election campaigns. While some democracies devise institutions and procedures to allow their national security executives some degree of autonomy to make decisions in the national interest even when there is large-scale domestic opposition, others keep their executives within tight institutional constraints. Due to the secret nature of many international negotiations, however, even less autonomous democratic governments may be able to escape their domestic constraints by deceiving the legislature and the public about their behaviour in secret talks. In this article, I investigate their ability to do so, and the consequent challenge this presents to democratic accountability.To this end, I examine the policy independence of Great Britain, France, and the United States when they negotiated the Versailles treaty of 1919, and Israeli efforts to negotiate a political settlement with the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) in 1993. These cases present excellent opportunities to study the independenceenhancing potential of deception since, as I will demonstrate, all four governments possessed relatively low levels of foreign policy autonomy. Hence, any differences in their observed policy independence cannot be attributed to differences in executive strength. Furthermore, during these negotiations the preferences of national leaders diverged sharply from public and legislative opinion; therefore, each of these leaders faced comparable countervailing domestic pressures. By observing the actual policy independence of David Lloyd George, Georges Clemenceau, Thomas Woodrow Wilson, and Yitzhak Rabin-the national leaders and principal negotiators-assessed in terms of their ability to pursue unpopular policies and accept treaty provisions that conflicted with domestic demands, as well as the frequency with which they resorted to deceptive tactics to escape domestic pressures, we can gauge the ability of skilful national agents to magnify the scope of structural autonomy with which they are endowed. Finally, these cases allow me to explore whether executives resort to deception in different negotiating conditions and different eras. The 1919 settlement was negotiated in a multilateral context amongst sovereign democratic states; Israel negotiated the 1993 agreement bilaterally with a nonstate actor.This article is divided into five parts. Part I considers the dynamics of international negotiations and the opportunities they present for less autonomous democratic executives. Part II overviews the domestic decision-making environments of the four democracies in question in order to demonstrate that they all had relatively constrained executives. Parts III and IV present the case studies. My conclusions, which consider the contemporary incentives for deception and the paradox of accountability it creates, are presented in Part V.I DOMESTICALLY WEAK DEMOCRATIC EXECUTIVES AND INTERNATIONAL NEGOTIATIONSPutnam has likened international negotiation to a complex two-level game.1 National leaders must play to two audiences while they strive to achieve their own preferences: the international (level I) and the domestic (level II). The demands of these audiences often conflict, creating difficulties for leaders under the condition of strategic interdependence. Concessions to public and legislative opinion may irritate other states, and international concessions can ignite domestic opposition. In addition, the demands of both groups might be inimical to the government's own objectives. In order to reach an international agreement, the substance of the accord must be at least minimally acceptable to a state's bargaining partners. …

Lessons From the Balkans for American Foreign Policy: Building Civil Society within a Multilateral

This essay, drawing on the author's involvement in the Balkans, suggests a strategy of engagement for U.S. foreign policy, below and beyond the nation state level. The United States must build civil society, rule of law, democracy and open markets in countries that now breed terrorism, and develop a military capability to meet actual threats within a multilateral context.

When the Weak Bargain with the Strong: Negotiations in the World Trade Organization

When a developing country negotiates with a large developed country it generally faces the problem of unequal bargaining power. Within the context of trade negotiations forming coalitions is one natural response to this. However, even in multilateral contexts the sources of bargaining power still operate to advantage the large developed state and developing states do not always gain strength from numbers. The experience of the Uruguay Round, especially the negotiations over intellectual property rights, suggests that developing countries have to think much more creatively about group life and structures for engendering a different kind of group life rather than focusing too much on the institutional reform of the World Trade Organization. Informal and formal groups have different advantages and disadvantages. A more formal structure along the lines proposed in the paper would help developing countries to overcome the weaknesses of informal groups, especially the two-track dilemma. Developing countries need groups that encourage communication amongst themselves, especially in the hard bargaining stages of a trade round. Better communication amongst developing countries is the basis for making calculative trust more robust and allows for possibility of the formation of some level of social identity trust. informal groups, intellectual property rights, Quad, social identity trust, trade negotiation, World Trade Organization