Round Of Multilateral Trade Negotiations Research Articles

New Vectors of WTO Law Development and Certain Issues of Application of the Subsidy Instrument

The multilateral system of trade regulation is the most complex institution of international law. Over the past three decades, the members of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade have managed to form not only the format of negotiations — the World Trade Organization, but also the rules and regulations for doing business in the world market, including the rules for granting subsidies. However, the further development of the organization is undergoing a crisis. The equilibrium application of international trade rules is now impossible due to the current situation: some developing countries, which at the time of joining the WTO recorded a large number of exemptions and transition periods, have grown economically and can now compete on an equal footing with developed countries. On the other hand, it is impossible to talk about any violations, since these exemptions were “agreed”. The problem is exacerbated by the fact that the WTO, although it uses the concepts of “developing, developed and least developed countries”, does not have its own classification of countries according to economic development and cannot respond to changes in their development. The questions posed by the last round of multilateral trade negotiations (the Doha round) have already begun to affect such areas of regulation in which the equalization of the norms and rules of trade between developing countries and developed countries affects not only the economic but also the social sphere. In addition, a deeper level of typification of trade regulation rules affects the mechanisms of interaction that go beyond the activities of such an international organization as the WTO and are inherent in integration associations. Nevertheless, active WTO members have put forward initiatives to change the rules for issuing subsidies, aimed at tightening them and even deeper unification of national jurisdictions with standard international approaches to regulating state support.

Trade restrictions on minerals and metals

Import tariffs and export taxes that are imposed on products far upstream in global supply chains increase trade costs strongly since they are applied on products that will most likely be traded many times before they are sold for final consumption. This paper examines the export and import restrictions in place on minerals and metals. This paper provides a backdrop to the recent trade restrictions on minerals and metals. This issue has had much resonance lately since the United States imposed import tariffs of 25% on steel and 10% on aluminium from some major producing countries. The use of export restrictions by producers of minerals and metals is increasing. Moreover, once export restricting measures are in place, they are rarely lifted. Export taxes on minerals and metals can be high, and some are prohibitively high. High export taxes negatively affect exports by countries that impose them. Import policies are very different to those that apply to exports: in major markets for minerals and metals, import tariffs have been substantially lower on average compared with the export taxes imputed by producing countries. Eight successive rounds of multi-lateral trade negotiations have taken place since 1947, resulting in fairly low import tariffs with many countries having bound their tariffs, i.e. pledged not to raise them above an agreed maximum, at successively lower levels. Export taxes are not subjected to multi-lateral oversight. Trade restrictions are used particularly frequently on metallic waste and scrap, which is generated either as a by-product of the mining and refining process or from recycled goods. Since recovered materials can re-enter the production cycle as inputs, trade restrictions pose a particular challenge to the aim of decoupling industrial production from resource use, which is deemed necessary to achieve compliance with the 2030 Agenda and Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

Leadership competencies at Tata steel Jamshedpur since Globalization

Central problem of globalization is competition, because the principal driving force in the globalization process today is precisely to gain profits world over, and for this firms now have to formulate strategies which allow them to exploit all available sources of competitiveness on whatever markets they choose to compete. This, of course, has been made possible on the one hand by advances in technological progress, which have greatly increased the scope of the international division of labor and factor movement, and on the other by the liberalization of world trade in the course of the various rounds of multilateral trade negotiations. But in its widest sense competition also means the survival of the fittest, and indeed it has been said that competition kills competition. The present study endeavors to study the leadership competencies of Tata steel since globalization

Impact of WTO's AOA on India's Trade in Agriculture

The agreement on agriculture (AOA) forms a part of the final act of the Uruguay round of multilateral trade negotiation, which was signed by the member's countries in April 1994 at Marrakesh, Morocco and came into force on 1st January 1995.for the first time, agriculture features in a major way in the GATT round of multilateral trade negotiations. Although the original GATT- the predecessor of the World Trade organization (WTO) applied to trade in agriculture, various expectations to the disciplines on the use of non-tariff measures and subsidy meant that it did not do so effectively. The Uruguay round agreement sought to bring order and fair competition to this highly distorted sector of world trade by establishment of a fair and market oriented agriculture trading sector. Therefore the formation of the world trade organization (WTO) in January 1, 1995 as a successor organization for the General Agreement of Tariff and Trade (GATT) was watershed event in the history of global trade reform.

Is the Information Technology Agreement Facilitating Latecomer Manufacturing and Innovation? India's Experience

A defining characteristic of today’s international trading system is that plurilateral trade agreements like the Information Technology Agreement (ITA) are gaining in importance relative to the gridlocked Doha round of multilateral trade negotiations. These more selective trade agreements pose new and so far little understood challenges for the governance of the international trading system, especially with regard to the distribution of liberalization gains among participants which differ in their stage of development, their institutions, and their resources and capabilities.The paper examines India’s experience with ITA. Initially, the main concern was to attract inward FDI and to facilitate the growth of its then still nascent IT services industry. For electronics manufacturing however, the analysis shows that gains from trade liberalization were overshadowed by substantial costs – with rising electronics imports inflating the country’s current account deficit to unsustainable record highs, while eroding domestic electronic manufacturing and innovation.To improve reciprocity in the distribution of gains from ITA, the paper suggests that latecomers like India deserve, under certain conditions, special and differentiated treatment. In turn, these countries need to agree to reforms that reduce investment barriers in their domestic industries, such as restrictive regulations and discrimination against foreign direct investment.

The Clash of Negotiations: The Impact of Outside Options on Multilateral Trade Negotiations

Abstract While the number of preferential trade agreements (PTA) has increased rapidly in recent years, the Doha round of multilateral trade negotiations has been deadlocked since 2006. Most PTAs were even concluded after the start of the Doha round. Does the shift to PTAs “marginalize” the multilateral system? And is there a clash between preferential and multilateral trade liberalization? To answer these questions, we build upon negotiation analysis literature, arguing that the proliferation of PTAs draws negotiating capacity away from the multilateral level and thus reduces the incentives to agree on multilateral trade agreements. The willingness of actors to move from their initial bargaining positions and make concessions at the multilateral level depends on their outside options, that is, their best or worst alternatives to a negotiated agreement. The more credible an actor’s argument that he has a good alternative to multilateralism, the greater his bargaining power will be. In order to support the argument we will analyze the negotiation process at the multilateral level and link it to PTAs under negotiation by the EU, US, Brazil, Australia, and India.

Протекционизм и свобода торговли в современном мире

In the second part of XX century the world saw a steady strengthening and consolidation of liberalization trend in trade policies of many nations. This helped to establish the GATT in 1947 and, later on as a result of Uruguay round of multilateral trade negotiations (1986-1994), the new international economic institution - the WTO. However, the pace and scale of multilateral liberalization do not satisfy the participants of international trade. This triggers a widespread drive for concluding bilateral, regional and then transcontinental agreements on economic cooperation. The article is devoted to an in-depths analysis of the contradictions that arise between the WTO and regional trade agreements, as well as to the available ways of their reconciliation.

Life after Doha: Some Reflections in the Run-Up to the 9th WTO Ministerial on Bali

The Doha Round continues to struggle on with its ultimate fate still largely uncertain. This paper, written as part of a broader initiative by the World Trade Institute (WTI), the Economic Research Institute for ASEAN and East Asia (ERIA) and Universitas Pelita Haparan (UPH) in the run up to the ninth WTO Ministerial Conference on Bali in December 2013, discusses how the multilateral trading system got to the current impasse and offers some preliminary thoughts on decoupling the fate of the WTO from that of what is now a largely moribund round of multilateral trade negotiations. This paper argues that the WTO is still the best organization the world has for tackling a number of increasingly pressing issues, and that despite the quagmire that the Doha Round has become, there still remains a number of important roles for the WTO to assume and to continue playing, not least of which being the ultimate arbiter of what constitutes compliance with international trade rules.

World Trade Organization judicialization and preference convergence in EU trade policy: making the agent's life easier

Some feared that judicialization in the World Trade Organization (WTO) would decrease WTO members' propensity to support multilateral trade liberalization. Yet, in 2001 WTO members launched a new round of multilateral trade negotiations, fervently supported by the European Union (EU) despite the influence of domestic protectionist forces. This contribution offers an explanation of why judicialization elicited increased convergence of policy preferences between a liberalizing agent (Commission) and multiple principals (economic interests). I identify three judicialization-led rationales for this: the empowerment of exporters relative to protectionist forces; the enhanced attractiveness of the WTO as an institutional location for international regulatory standards; and the strengthening of incentives to engage positively in negotiations to offset the likely costs of adverse panel rulings. I show the plausibility of this argument through an empirical analysis of EU politics in three negotiation areas in the Doha Round: services; agriculture; and the ‘Singapore issues’.

Globalization: Curse or Cure? Policies to Harness Global Economic Integration to Solve Our Economic Challenge

Globalization holds tremendous promise to improve human welfare but can also cause conflicts and crises as witnessed during 2007–09. How will competition for resources, employment, and growth shape economic policies among developed nations as they attempt to maintain productivity growth, social protections, and extensive political and cultural freedoms? The processes associated with economic globalization — such as free trade, business outsourcing, capital mobility, and so on — generate considerable public apprehension because of the economic uncertainty they portend. But crossnational production supply chains have now become so extensive that the recession-induced decline in global trade is causing considerable economic distress in developed countries. In contrast, emerging countries — especially Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Korea — have experienced only modest declines in economic growth. As those nations continue to advance economically and output growth in developed nations recovers, the process of globalization will resume. But with the Doha round of multilateral trade negotiations stalled, bilateral and regional trade agreements may come to dominate that process. Regardless of how globalization progresses, policymakers in developed nations remain concerned about whether domestic output and employment growth can recover as rapidly as after recessions past. Those concerns are magnified by prospective population aging in developed countries. Intensifying foreign competition and employment uncertainty could provoke calls by industry lobbyists and displaced workers for additional government protections. And worker migration toward developed nations will continue, spurred by wage differentials between developed and developing countries. Younger immigrants may eventually help developed nations to ease the economic challenge posed by population aging, but immigrants are often viewed as competing for jobs, adding to public welfare costs, and reducing social cohesion. This paper offers policy recommendations for developed nations to reduce globalization's negative effects and, indeed, harness it for solving aging-related economic challenges.

On the European Responsibility in the Agricultural Multilateral Trade Negotiations: Modelling the Impacts of the Common Agricultural Policy

AbstractThe present round of multilateral trade negotiations is still deadlocked over agricultural trade. The European Union (EU) is urged by its trading partners to open its agricultural markets. Economic evaluations of trade liberalisation scenarios unanimously conclude that a substantial opening of agricultural markets is required for a successful (welfare‐improving) Doha Round. In this paper, we perform new evaluations to identify precisely the contributions of the European farm policy and to examine the robustness of these evaluations in the representation of this complex policy. Using the same specifications as in major previous studies, our first simulations show that the EU has a major responsibility in delivering significant gains to the developing countries. On the other hand, when we conduct the same experiments with a more relevant calibration and modelling of the European farm policy instruments, the gains that these developing countries may reap from the EU liberalisation are considerably reduced. Accordingly the current charge against the EU is simply inopportune.

Liberalizing trade, and its impact on poverty and inequality in Nicaragua.

The Doha round of multilateral trade negotiations stalled in 2008 owing in no small degree to a lack of agreement on the terms of substantially reducing trade-distorting support for agricultural products and to what extent this will be beneficial to developing countries. Nicaragua presents an interesting case in point, being one of the poorest economies in Latin America with still a relatively large agricultural sector and high degrees of rural poverty. In 2005, the country signed a free trade agreement with the United States. This chapter provides a quantitative analysis addressing that question. It does so using a computable general equilibrium (CGE) model for Nicaragua coupled with a micro-simulation methodology. The first section provides background information on trade reform policies and macroeconomic trends in Nicaragua, with special reference to the agricultural sector and rural poverty. The section that follows describes the main features of the CGE model and the micro-simulation methodology used to assess the impact on poverty and inequality. The author then lay out the model scenarios considered, which include liberalizations of agricultural and all merchandise goods trade by the rest of the world and by Nicaragua itself. That is followed by a summary analysis of results. This analysis includes tests for the sensitivity of the results with respect to assumptions regarding the responsiveness of trade to price liberalization, as identified through the relevant trade elasticities. The final section provides conclusions and possible policy implications.

Bilateral Free Trade Agreements: A Critical Assessment and WTO Regulatory Reform Proposal

At this writing, most-favored-nation (MFN) principles notwithstanding, every nation save Mongolia has entered into at least one bilateral or free trade agreement. The European Union, for example, is so heavily engaged in bilateral deals that it has MFN trade relations with only seven countries. Hundreds of bilaterals have been negotiated since the early 1990s. The apparent failure of the Doha Round virtually guarantees their dominance of international trade law and policy. This article reviews the history of bilateral and free trade (bilaterals), failed attempts at their regulation under the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) and the World Trade Organization (WTO), and critically assesses the significance of their proliferation for international trade law and policy. Reform of WTO jurisdiction over bilaterals concentrated in the Dispute Settlement Understanding (DSU) is proposed. Specifically, abandonment of all WTO regulation except for a Revised Transparency Mechanism (text attached) operating in conjunction with expanded DSU opportunities is suggested. A word on nomenclature: This article utilizes the term bilateral(s) because it best characterizes the free trade that are presently sweeping the seas. Generally in GATT/WTO parlance, regional trade agreements (RTA) has been and continues to be employed. Those words, in my opinion, are not the best descriptors of what is happening when, for example, China and Chile, Japan and Mexico, the United States and Oman, and the European Union and South Africa agree on free trade. A variety of factors help explain why bilaterals have become the leading edge of international trade law and policy. Difficulties encountered in the Uruguay, Seattle and Doha Rounds of multilateral trade negotiations are certainly crucial. GATT/WTO regulatory failures regarding bilaterals have also fueled this reality. Yet these negatives do not fully explain the feeding frenzy of bilaterals. A range of attractions to bilaterals are also at work. For example, bilaterals often extend to subject matters beyond WTO competence. Foreign investment law is a prime example, and many bilaterals serve as investment magnets. Government procurement, optional at the WTO level, is often included in bilaterals. Competition policy and labor and environmental matters absent from the WTO are sometimes covered in bilaterals. In addition, bilaterals can reach beyond the scope of existing WTO agreements. Services is one WTO-plus area where this is clearly true. Intellectual property rights are also being WTO-plussed in bilateral free trade agreements. Whether this amounts to competitive trade liberalization or competitive trade imperialism has been provocatively explored by Prof. Bhala. Further, bilaterals are politically and economically selective. In other words they avoid not only global most-favored-nation principles, but also domestically sensitive areas of national politics and economics. For example, Singapore's absence of farm exports helped make it an ideal U.S. and Japanese free trade partner. The micro-sized economy of Chile contributed to its attraction as a free trade partner with Mexico, China, the European Union, the United States and others. U.S. free trade deals with Jordan, Bahrain and Oman fit economically in a similar fashion, not to mention national security objectives. Like it or not, the spaghetti-bowl maze of bilaterals is driven by powerful negative and positive forces. It is not only the preferred trade medium of today, but very likely the future. Already more than half of world trade is conducted under bilaterals. While international trade lawyers may celebrate full employment, it bears remembering that bilaterals are discriminatory. They could render MFN the least favored status in world trade. Such an outcome would be especially harmful to the world's poorest nations, those with whom few WTO partners seek a bilateral agreement.

What Can Least Developed Countries Really Expect from the Doha Development Agenda?

In November 2001, a new round of multilateral trade negotiations was launched in Doha, Qatar, with a key objective of development. Although the initiative was politically laudable, doubts arise on the economic impacts of the negotiations, in particular on the Least Developed Countries (LDCs). LDCs have very specific economic features: they have been granted numerous trade preferences, their exports are characterized by a high product concentration and many of them are net food importers. Several measures such the Aid-For-Trade initiative and the Duty Free Quota Free (DFQF) regime have been proposed during the negotiations in order to compensate LDCs for potential losses that the multilateral trade liberalization could imply. Using the computable general equilibrium model, MIRAGE, the current proposals as well as more beneficial options for LDCs are examined. All of the implemented scenarios are based on detailed elements of the proposals and are designed at a much disaggregated level using the MAcMap-HS6 v.2 database. As expected, the Doha Development Agenda as defined by May 2008 does not bring significant economic benefits for LDCs and it even hurts most of them in terms of total exports and real income. Therefore, the introduction of a DFQF regime would lead to a better situation for LDCs only if the preferential access is extended to LDCs not only by the OECD members but also by major emerging economies for a very high number of products. LDCs are very diverse and have different interests in terms of sectoral and geographic extension of the DFQF access.

The costs of global tariff barriers on wool products: 1997–2005

AbstractThe Doha round of multilateral trade negotiations commits World Trade Organization (WTO) members to improving market access for both agricultural and nonagricultural goods. Tariff barriers on wool products represent a small but important subset of these negotiations. To inform the debate on the round, we analyze the distortionary effects of recent (1997–2005) tariff barriers on wool products using a model that applies a comprehensive analytical approach with regard to the production, trade, and consumption of wool products. We also account for any indirect effects of wool tariff barriers on the nonwool economy by incorporating the production, trade, and consumption of nonwool products, that is, the framework is a comparative‐static global general equilibrium model with a detailed representation of the world wool market. Changes in wool tariffs over 1997–2005 lead to positive welfare effects for most regions; Italy, China, and the UK are estimated to have gained the most from the changes. The results indicate that the nature of recent wool tariffs severely distort the size of wool industries in different regions. The changes in the output of wool commodities are extreme reflecting the discriminatory nature of the tariffs.

From Seattle to Hong Kong: Are We Getting Anywhere?

With agricultural trade negotiations deadlocked, the Doha round of trade talks may appear dead in the water. But every round of trade talks in recent memory has oscillated between near breakthroughs and near breakdowns. Trade negotiations can be like a ride on a roller coaster but, while the roller coaster returns to where it started, multilateral trade negotiations have generally gone on to close successfully. Will this happen with the Doha round? Surprisingly, the answer is yes. Prospects for concluding the round in Hong Kong next month, at the World Trade Organization Ministerial meeting, are indeed bleak; but not the prospects for finishing later. While the initial attempt to launch the WTO's first round of multilateral trade negotiations in Seattle in November 1999 collapsed, the round was finally launched in Doha, Qatar, two years later, with reaffirmation of the twin virtues of democracy and openness to the world economy. While there was a lot of dissent in September 2003 at the next WTO meeting in Cancun, which also collapsed because of the lack of consensus especially on agricultural liberalization, there were nonetheless some important accomplishments in the tabling of most of the “Singapore issues” and an agreement to relax the TRIPS Agreement to permit developing country access to low-cost pharmaceuticals. Cancun was also a turning point insofar as the major developing countries coalesced in the Group of 20 to provide greater balance in the WTO membership and the design of the negotiating agenda. While it appears that agricultural liberalization is still a significant stumbling block facing the Hong Kong Ministerial, it is likely that the EU can be squeezed if there are reciprocal offers in manufactures and services that are forthcoming especially from some of the major developing countries that can be induced to liberalize in their own interests. It will also be helpful if a program of adjustment assistance can be devised in the form of “aid for trade” especially for low-income countries. The outlines of a deal to close the Doha Round are therefore clear. With forceful leadership on the part of Pascal Lamy to rescue the Doha Round in Hong Kong and to convince the WTO member states to follow with an extraordinary meeting within six months, it should be possible to take the penultimate steps to bring the Doha Round to a final conclusion by the end of 2006 and to obtain its approval by early 2007 before the U.S. fast-track negotiating authority expires. Jagdish Bhagwati is Senior Fellow in International Economics at the Council on Foreign Relations and University Professor, Economics and Law at Columbia University. He was Economic Policy Adviser to the Director General of GATT and of the WTO-appointed expert group that recently reported on The Future of the WTO. He is currently a member of the Eminent Persons Panel on Enhancing UNCTAD’s Impact and of UN Secretary General Kofi Annan’s Advisory Group on the NEPAD process in Africa. His latest books are Free Trade Today (Princeton, 2002) and In Defense of Globalization (Oxford, 2004).

Introductory Overview: Revisiting Trade Policies in Southeast Asia

Trade policy is clearly back on the radar screen in Southeast Asia, having been overshadowed by monetary and financial matters in the aftermath of the Asian crisis. The New Regionalism--the proliferation of free trade agreement (FTA) initiatives--has occupied centre stage since 1999/2000. Singapore blazed the trail, and other ASEAN members, notably Thailand, have been catching up. FTA initiatives have become equally popular in Northeast and South Asia, Australasia, and beyond. New FTAs concluded so far in the region have been mostly bilateral, involving individual ASEAN countries and partners outside the region. They have been supplemented by plurilateral, big-block FTA initiatives, involving ASEAN collectively and others (China, India, Japan, Australia, New Zealand). In all, about forty FTAs have been negotiated or are under discussion in the Asia-Pacific since 1999. There is talk of an East Asian Economic Community bringing together ASEAN, China, Japan, and Korea, and even of an Asian Economic Community that would subsume South Asia too. Not too long ago, China acceded to the World Trade Organization (WTO) in 2001, crowning the most sweeping set of market-oriented reforms, including the biggest dose of trade and investment liberalization, the world has ever seen. Arguably, China's WTO accession, with very strong commitments that go far beyond those of other developing countries, is the symbol of the liberalization wave worldwide over the past quarter century, and of modern economic globalization more generally. It is also a marker for the way in which China is reshaping economic activity and policy in East and Southeast Asia. India, too, is integrating faster into the world economy, though not nearly as fast or as dramatically as China. The global integration of these two big developing countries is probably the lead trend in economic globalization today and for some time to come. It has powerful, not-to-be underestimated implications for trade and wider economic policies in Southeast Asia. Turning to multilateral matters, the WTO, after the crippling failure of the Seattle Ministerial Conference in 1999, witnessed the launch of a new round of multilateral trade negotiations in Doha at the end of 2001. The round came to a halt with the collapse of the Cancun Ministerial Conference in 2003; but it was revived, with a new negotiating framework put in place by July 2004. Nevertheless, grave doubts about the future of the WTO and of the multilateral trading system persist--a major factor in turning to FTAs in Southeast Asia and elsewhere. Finally, ASEAN itself has hardly been short of initiatives to deepen its own economic integration. The tariff reduction timetable for the ASEAN Free Trade Area (AFTA) has been advanced and a new agreement announced to achieve an ASEAN Economic Community (AEC) by 2020. However, grand visions belie the reality on the ground, with at best modest results in bringing down intra-regional trade barriers. …

The phasing out of EU agricultural export subsidies : Impacts of two management schemes

Résumé The present round of multilateral trade negotiations at the World Trade Organisation is likely to put an end to European export subsidies on agricultural and food products. This paper attempts to evaluate such a policy scenario. Its main contribution is to compare two management schemes for the European Union economy. The first one has confidence in the equilibrium role of market prices while the second one favours a supply management approach. Our empirical results, based on a computable general equilibrium model, show huge effects on the dairy sector and reveal that the choice of a management scheme has a substantial bearing on sectoral welfare effects. JEL Classification : Q11 ; Q18 ; D58.

The role of veterinary epidemiology and veterinary services in complying with the World Trade Organization SPS agreement

The agreement on the application of sanitary and phytosanitary measures (SPS agreement) was one of the major products of the GATT's Uruguay round of multilateral trade negotiations, signed in Marrakesh on 15 April 1994. This agreement and others are part of the treaty that established the World Trade Organization (WTO). The WTO superseded the GATT as the umbrella organization for international trade ( WTO, 1998a). The SPS agreement's main intent is to provide guidelines and provisions to member countries to facilitate trade while taking measures to protect human, animal or plant life or health. The agreement dictates that all sanitary measures must be scientifically based and not more restrictive than required to avoid the risk identified. The agreement recommends the use of international standards from the World Organization for Animal Health (OIE), Codex Alimentarius (CAC) and the International Plant Protection Convention (IPPC) as the basis for import requirements. If a country chooses to apply more restrictive measures than those in the international standards, it has to justify its position through a risk analysis, thus avoiding the use of sanitary and phytosanitary measures as unjustified barriers to trade. More than ever, veterinary services worldwide are faced with having to fulfill a crucial role in protecting their country's animal health status, provide sound surveillance information on the occurrence of diseases within their territories, and conduct scientifically valid risk analyses to establish justified import requirements. During the past two decades, most countries have experienced resource reduction in their veterinary services. The effect of these policies has been severe, in many cases leading to an inability of veterinary services to conduct their disease prevention and control duties. There is a clear inconsistency between the demands placed on veterinary services and the current level of funding and support they are receiving, particularly in the developing world. This paper analyzes the implications in complying with the SPS agreement and explores the role of veterinary epidemiology in developing viable alternatives that can enhance the veterinary services’ ability to perform under the current economic reality. The key provisions of the SPS agreement are regionalization, risk analysis, harmonization, equivalence and transparency. The paper focuses on the contribution of epidemiology in each of these areas in the effective implementation of the SPS agreement.

Agriculture and developing countries in the new round of negotiations within WTO

The Ministerial Conference held in Doha (Qatar) launched a new round of multilateral trade negotiations in World Trade Organization. It is called the development round because the interests and needs of developing countries are in the focus of negotiations. One of the most important (and controversial) questions is the liberalization of international trade in agricultural products. The beginning of that process was the conclusion of the Agreement on agriculture during the Uruguay Round which was followed by the negotiations initiated in 2000. The negotiations are supposed to finish until the end of the year 2006. Analyzing the recent results of negotiations, we can conclude that a lot of questions are not harmonized and that in front of the negotiators is a very difficult and complex task to overcome the existing differences and find compromise solutions. The results of the Doha negotiations (including agriculture) are very important for the future of the multilateral trading system.