Trades Council Research Articles

Latin American Neoliberalism, a Transnational Class Project?

Abstract: This article contributes to recent research efforts in understanding Latin America’s neoliberal experience. While the phenomenon’s origins have often been associated with North Atlantic experiences, this study aims to explore its emergence in the region’s historical, ideological, and political contexts. By focusing on the Inter-American Council for Trade and Production (Consejo Interamericano de Comercio y Producción), a trans-national private organization active during the second half of the 20th century, the text delves into the formation of a distinctly Latin American neoliberal ideology. The groundwork for this ideology was laid amid transcontinental discussions, negotiations, and consensus-building efforts. Contrary to diffusionist narratives, which emphasize the North’s influence on the South, this study underscores the autochthonous roots of Latin American neoliberalism. By tracing the evolution of neoliberalism within the continent’s own history, this article challenges predominant interpretations and underscores the role of endogenous political, economic, and intellectual dynamics in shaping the region’s ideological landscape.

WTO, Women’s Empowerment and Financial Inclusion

Promoting financial inclusion for women is a goal supported by many multilateral organizations and policymakers globally, and the WTO is no exception. This article argues that financial inclusion is crucial to empower women economically and socially. It emphasizes historical barriers that women have faced in accessing financial services. In addition, it underlines the importance of incorporating women's financial inclusion into the World Trade Organization (WTO) and advocates for leveraging existing structures within the WTO, such as the Council for Trade in Services and the Committee on Trade in Financial Services, to advance this issue. The objective is to facilitate the exchange of experiences and best practices among Members in a structured manner, addressing the regulatory framework of financial institutions and learning from each other, rather than creating new rights or obligations or launching joint initiatives. Financial Inclusion, World Trade Organization, Women’s Empowerment, Gender, Trade in Services, Financial Services, WTO Ministerial Conference, Committee on Trade in Financial Services, Remittances, and Gender Equality

Trade union strategies to tackle labour market insecurity: Geography and the role of Sheffield TUC

AbstractThis paper analyses the role of trades councils and trade unions in organising within local and regional contexts around the challenges facing and potential union strategies for addressing the needs of insecure and precarious workers. We deploy a case study on the Sheffield Trade Union Council and the Sheffield Needs A Pay Rise campaign as a way of exploring innovations and challenges for the trade union movement for organising the unorganised. We explore the potentials as well as limitations of local organising and campaigning around insecurity and marginalisation by trade unions to demonstrate theoretically and empirically within industrial relations research the role of strategic spaces for action by workers and trade unions and the set of institutional, economic, social and cultural resources that workers can draw on in developing their respective strategies.

Improvement of mechanisms of formation and implementation the state export policy in Ukraine

It was assessment the prospects for the application of an export-oriented growth strategy in Ukraine as the basis of the economic growth strategy based on the analysis of foreign practices and achieved economic results. It has been established that the effectiveness of the implementation of the export-oriented growth strategy in our country will be successful only with the active introduction of innovative technologies in the production of goods and services due to the inflow of direct foreign investments in export-oriented sectors of the economy. The draft plan of measures for the post-war recovery and development of Ukraine was analyzed. A number of measures necessary for the implementation of the export-oriented growth strategy were identified. The institutional, financial and resource support of export activity are analyzed. It has been established that the existing network of trade support institutions in Ukraine is not able to fully ensure the proper level of effective support for Ukrainian exporters on international markets. Furthermore, the mechanism of interaction and cooperation of state export support institutions, in particular the International Trade Council under the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine, with other institutions in the field of international trade and enterprises of the real sector of the economy is imperfect. It was noted that the realization of export entrepreneurial potential in Ukraine is held back today not only by global factors (pandemic, war etc.), but also by internal obstacles, among which, in particular, the absence of a strategic document in the export activity of the state - the Export Strategy of Ukraine, which would cover the main principles of export policy implementation during the war and during the post-war recovery period. It has been argued the necessity to updating and actualization the Export Strategy of Ukraine, which will determine the main directions of development of Ukraine's international trade and support of export-oriented enterprises, especially small and medium-sized businesses, taking into account new challenges and prospects. It was noted that state and non-state, including with the participation of international organizations, financial and non-financial support of export activities are important tools for financial and resource support of domestic exports today. It has been argued the necessity of introducing a mechanism of insurance of investments of domestic and foreign investors against military risks in Ukraine. Measures to increase the effectiveness of the consultative and advisory activities of the International Trade Council and the financial capacity of domestic exporters, including with the participation of the Export Credit Agency, was proposed.

Family’s Story and Connections Move Major Hearing Health Legislation

You have accessThe ASHA LeaderFirst Person on the Last Page1 Oct 2019Family’s Story and Connections Move Major Hearing Health LegislationThe father of an educational audiologist’s client propels passage of a bill requiring hearing-device coverage. Tena McNamaraAuD, CCC-A/SLP Tena McNamara Google Scholar More articles by this author , AuD, CCC-A/SLP https://doi.org/10.1044/leader.FPLP.24102019.72 SectionsAboutPDF ToolsAdd to favorites ShareFacebookTwitterLinked In A new law in Illinois requires health insurers to cover hearing instruments for children. And the family of one of my clients played a major role in getting that legislation passed. Signed into law on Aug. 22, 2018, House Bill 4516 amends the Illinois Insurance Code, the Health Maintenance Organization Act, and the Voluntary Health Services Plans Act to mandate hearing device coverage for children through age 18 years. When we learned the bill had been introduced in February 2018, my first instinct was to contact Clint and Sarah Drury, the parents of one of my students. Their daughter Sawyer, 11, has Mondini dysplasia, resulting in a bilateral moderate-to-profound sensorineural hearing loss. During the five or so years I have worked with Sawyer as an educational audiologist, I forged a close working relationship with the family. The Drurys remember the time Sawyer was initially diagnosed with hearing loss as life-changing. They were stunned at the price of hearing technology and totally unprepared for the cost. They had family insurance coverage, but amplification devices and related services were not covered. They knew firsthand how beneficial the bill would be to families of children with hearing loss. The Drurys had been staunch advocates for hearing loss-related causes—for example, along with some help from Sawyer’s school speech-language pathologist, Sarah Moon, they raised approximately $7,000 for the Hearing Loss Association of America’s Walk4Hearing—so I knew they would work hard and be dedicated to promoting this legislation. In addition, Clint’s professional position as executive director of the West Central Illinois Building and Construction Trades Council had prepared him for work with the state legislature; he has developed relationships with many legislators throughout the state. Clint promptly began promoting the bill in the General Assembly. He shared his family’s story, illustrating the hardships that parents encounter when they must pay out-of-pocket for hearing instruments for their children. By contacting dozens of senators and representatives, he boosted the number of sponsors for the bill. Clint’s efforts were not, however, self-serving. His family’s insurance is through a union health and welfare fund not required to comply with legislative mandates. But he continued to work on behalf of the children with hearing loss who would benefit from the legislation. The efforts of the Drurys, other families, and the Illinois Speech-Language-Hearing Association paid off. The bipartisan legislation passed both the House and Senate with little opposition. Now, insurers included under the mandate must provide coverage for one hearing instrument every 36 months, along with repairs, selection, fitting, adjustments, and earmolds when medically necessary. I learned two important lessons from this experience. The first is to know your clients and their families beyond their educational or medical needs. They may have skills and knowledge that can help you professionally and aid with specialized practice needs. This is especially true with legislation. Second, I have learned the power of personal and human-interest stories in influencing government officials. Legislators want to know how prospective laws may affect their constituents, and these testimonials are effective in illustrating that. Author Notes Tena McNamara, AuD, CCC-A/SLP, professor emeritus at Eastern Illinois University, is a pediatric audiologist at Mueller Pediatric Therapy in East Peoria, Illinois. [email protected] Advertising Disclaimer | Advertise With Us Advertising Disclaimer | Advertise With Us Additional Resources FiguresSourcesRelatedDetails Volume 24Issue 10October 2019 Get Permissions Add to your Mendeley library History Published in print: Oct 1, 2019 Metrics Downloaded 523 times Topicsleader_do_tagleader-topicsasha-article-typesCopyright & Permissions© 2019 American Speech-Language-Hearing AssociationLoading ...

Condescending Saviors: Union Substitution at Toyota Motor Manufacturing Kentucky (TMMK)

“Condescending Saviors” identifies and analyzes multiple factors underlying the ability of Toyota Motor Corporation’s Georgetown, Kentucky plant to stymy unionization of production workers through sophisticated and extensive union substitutionism. Two key factors in this case study of its profoundly pragmatic long-term substitution are the meso-corporatist institutions by which it successfully embedded itself in Kentucky, and, critically, the trajectory of the United Auto Workers from business unionism to narrow enterprise unionism based solely on the interests of the auto companies. A contrast between the Kentucky Building Trades Council’s successful unionization of construction work and the UAW’s organizing failures places the latter in bold relief and argues against the popular reasoning that the UAW was simply the victim of events, the period, or TMMK’s location. It also exposes the insularity that has shielded Toyota’s plants and workers from all objective academic investigation. A final substantive chapter charts the stages of the UAW’s transition to enterprise unionism, decades of erosion of union democracy and concomitant organizing capacity, and thus offers a view of possible alternative developments. The historical and comparative method contextualizes these events within the larger framework of the shifting relationship between capital, labor, and the state in the second half of the twentieth century US. The similarities between the weak class struggle in the US and the defeat of Japanese working-class struggle overshadow any reliance on cultural differences. Thus, “American exceptionalism” and “Japanese uniqueness” are abandoned as frames that deny an important commonality of forces, and the specific working of meso-corporatism in the US. Investigating this puzzle using the arsenal of political science and, necessarily, the methods of the meticulous historian, yielded a new paradigm to better understand trade union decline. Identifying these factors required an in-depth understanding of Japanese and US union history since the nineteenth century; an extensive review of the history of industrial relations practices at Toyota’s earlier joint venture with General Motors in California; and the decades-long process of centralization of control within the UAW and its refusal to enforce the Constitutionally-required prohibition of competition between UAW-represented plants; all of which are further explored in working papers.

Exploring Corporate Social Responsibility in a Social Business: The Workers Beer Company

The Workers Beer Company is a long-established company owned by the Battersea and Wandsworth Trades Union Council in London. The Trade Council is an umbrella group bringing together trade union branches in South London to promote trade union activity and membership locally. The Company’s focus is to raise funds for ‘left’ organisations, promote trade union membership and support organisations to deliver ethical services through mobilising its volunteer base to run bars and sell drinks music festivals. Once costs are met company surpluses are either reinvested or are devoted to social purposes. This paper explores integrated CSR through a case study of an organisation that has provided support for the last 30 years at globally recognised festivals, developed ethical businesses and donated millions of pounds to good causes. The case study will use Glastonbury Festival as a focus for the legal, local government and environmental pressures that influence corporate behaviour and promote CSR.

The Effect of Export Promotion on Firm-Level Performance

Most countries promote exports. This paper answers two questions: Does export promotion improve firm performance, and do any benefits outweigh costs? We solve self-selection problems by accounting for an extensive set of firm characteristics. In addition, we distinguish firms that self-selected into promotion services from firms the Danish Trade Council approached based on observed information. We find that export promotion increases sales, value added, employment, and value added per worker. For small firms, summing expenditures on export promotion, subsidies, and tax distortions, the gain in value added is roughly three times higher than the direct costs of export promotion. (JEL D22, F13, F14, L25, L53)

China-U.S. Relations during the Trump Administration: Mixed Signals, Increased Risks

China-U.S. Relations during the Trump Administration:Mixed Signals, Increased Risks Xie Tao (bio) Whether you hold a crystal ball passed down from Thucydides or are trained in the offensive realist tradition, your predictions about the future of China-U.S. relations will probably be the same: the two great powers are destined for war. For those who are skeptical of historical analogies or the practical value of theoretical models, however, the Chinese leadership offers a dose of optimism. Beijing has consistently reassured the international community that it is firmly committed to peaceful development. Most importantly, Chinese president Xi Jinping in 2014 called on his American counterpart to jointly work toward a new model of major-country relations characterized by "non-conflict, non-confrontation, mutual respect, and win-win cooperation."1 Xi now has a new White House occupant to reassure. Despite his frequent criticism of China during the 2016 presidential campaign, Donald Trump the candidate actually had a big following in China. One telltale sign of his popularity was that there were several unabashedly pro-Trump microblogs on Sina Weibo (a Chinese social media tool that combines functions of Twitter and Facebook). In addition to the Trump Fan Club, there were Trump the Great Man from Heaven and Trump Goes to the White House, each boasting thousands of followers.2 The title of an op-ed published in the New York Times shortly after Trump's electoral win in November, "How Trump Is Good for China," perhaps best captured the prevailing optimism among many Chinese officials and analysts. Although the author predicted that "relations may nose-dive in the short run over trade," he argued that "in the long term, [End Page 5] Mr. Trump's America and China are more likely to work with each other than in any other period in recent memory."3 Half a year into the Trump presidency, is it time to dismiss ominous predictions as alarmist or Chinese optimism as premature? What will be the most salient short-term and long-term issues for this bilateral relationship? This essay first examines the uneven start to China-U.S. relations during the Trump administration before assessing four key issues for the two countries: North Korea, the South China Sea, democracy in Taiwan and Hong Kong, and the responsibilities of global leadership. Mixed Signals Even before Trump was sworn in, there were worrisome signs that China-U.S. relations would almost certainly have a bumpy road ahead. Early last December, he took a congratulatory phone call from the Taiwanese leader Tsai Ing-wen, an unprecedented move that raised widespread alarm in both Beijing and Washington. Three weeks later, Trump nominated Peter Navarro—a longtime harsh critic of China's trade practices as well as the author of the sensational book and film Death by China—to be the head of the newly created National Trade Council. About two weeks before his inauguration, Trump chastised China for failing to rein in North Korea's nuclear programs. Just as most observers of China-U.S. relations were buckling up for a sharp downturn, President Trump seemed to have a sudden change of mind. On April 6, he hosted President Xi at Mar-a-Lago, where they agreed to, among other things, a 100-day action plan to advance bilateral economic cooperation. A little more than a month later, the two sides released a ten-part trade deal as the initial results of that action plan. A week after his meeting with Xi, Trump announced that his administration would not designate Beijing a currency manipulator, reversing his arguably best-known campaign promise regarding China. In a late April interview, he unequivocally rejected Tsai's suggestion for another phone call on the grounds that Xi was trying his best to pressure North Korea. On June 20, he sent out a tweet to show his appreciation of Xi's efforts to help with Pyongyang. This sequence of events, plus Trump's tweets and remarks, strongly suggests that he and Xi struck a bargain at Mar-a-Lago—that is, the former would offer concessions on currency, [End Page 6] trade, and Taiwan, and the latter would reciprocate with efforts...

Nepal's Earthquake-2015: Its Impact on Various Sectors

Natural Calamities are unavoidable events that lead to chaos, crisis and disaster. Nepal faced a disastrous earthquake: 7.8 Richter scale. Being repeatedly analyzed about the vulnerability of earthquake in Nepal, the country seems not prepared enough for the event. The unpreparedness had taken many lives including tangible and intangible values of society and cultural aesthetics. The earthquake has hindered the overall economic, social and environmental aspect. Tourism was one of the major economic backbones for the nation which with the event has barred at least for sometimes. According to the survey conducted on the Tourism Employment by Ministry of Culture, Tourism and Civil Aviation (MoCTCA) indicates that approximately 138,148 persons were engaged in the tourism sector (National Planning Commission, 2015b: 118). The pre-earthquake data, indicates that 487,500 jobs which would be 3.5 percent of the total employment in Nepal. The number of jobs was expected to rise by 4 percent in 2015 and 3 percent per annum to 681,000 jobs (World Travel and Trade Council, 2015). According to World Health Organization, the epicenter of the earthquake was Barpakh, Gorkha and the magniturde of the earthquake has catastrophic effect on 14 district of Nepal, including Gorkha, Dhading, Rasuwa, Sndhupalchok, Kavre, Nuwakot, Dolakha, Kathmandu, Lalitpur, Khaktapur, Ramechap, Sindhuli, Okhaldhunga and Makwanpur districts out of which Dolakha and Sindhupalchok are the most severely affected districts by the second earthquake on 13 May, World Health Organization (WHO, 2015).The Gaze: Journal of Tourism and Hospitality Vol.7 2015 pp.58-86

The Evolution of Sweden's Urban Sustainability Marketing Tool: A Comparative Study of Two Major International Events

In this article, some of the obstacles for translating urban imaginaries and urban sustainability concepts based on technological interventions are analyzed. This analysis is built on experiences from the World Urban Forum 7 in Medellín, Colombia held in April 2014 and uses previous attempts to explore the production of imaginaries at play in the performance of SymbioCity, an urban development concept with a symbiosis tint created by the Swedish Trade Council. Through documenting the role of physical and non-physical messages from the Swedish delegation and its exhibition, along with numerous interviews with key actors at the conference and from the city's administration, an analysis of the current strategies used to promote the tool is provided. The claim that induced idealized urban futures sap energy and result in poor achievement of the goals is used to suggest that context and current conditions influence the ability to understand and adopt technological solutions. The conclusions are centered on the fact that SymbioCity, for the most part, is trying to sell products or services that are difficult to see and understand from the perspective of cities-customers, since most of these consist of invisible (i.e., energy), or hidden loops (i.e., waste and water). It is argued that there are contextual and historical conditions that are crucial for the decision to implement them that are, at least implicitly, expressed by the targeted cities-customers, and that the SymbioCity concept, or at least the way it is communicated in these fora, has undergone a change, in the sense that it has become more flexible and allowed for bottom-up considerations to enter the discourse.

About that The Japan Fair Trade Council of the Medical Devices Industry (JFTC) Shall Perform the Following Functions; Matters Pertaining to Promotion of Greater Awareness and Understanding of The Fair Competition Code (FCC).

About that The Japan Fair Trade Council of the Medical Devices Industry (JFTC) Shall Perform the Following Functions; Matters Pertaining to Promotion of Greater Awareness and Understanding of The Fair Competition Code (FCC).

Lesson Learnt from Top-down Selection of Medium Enterprises for Green Industry Pilot Project in Surabaya

Green industry is becoming a hot issue all over the world. The basic principles of it are to minimize resources and emissions. Several developed and developing countries have obligated the implementation of green industry. Indonesian government also strives to implement the green industry principles by adding green industrial standards through the Act No. 3/2014. To support the implementation of that Act, Indonesian government through the Ministry of Industry has published the guideline for implementing green industry.In response to that Act, Surabaya City Government, that has successfully reduced carbon emission by green and clean initiatives in housing, kampong, and open space, tries to select some medium enterprises to implement the green industry principles in their companies. The selected companies will be provided technical assistance to fully implement the green standards, thus become the pilot projects in Surabaya. It is expected that the success of those selected companies will trigger other companies to implement the green principles as well. In Indonesian context, the role of examples is proven in successfully rolling programs. Therefore the selection process of potential medium companies to be the pilot projects becomes the critical step in implementing the program.This paper will present the processes and the findings of the top-down selection done by Surabaya Council of Trade and Industry together with ITS Team. The top-down selection consists of criteria setting, Analytical Network Process (ANP) modeling, and Technique for Order Preference by Similarity to Idea Solution (TOPSIS) processing. Workshops and industrial visits are also the part of the selection processes. The effectiveness of the top-down approach will be discussed and lesson learnt will be highlighted. Furthermore, better approaches will be proposed. This paper will provide insights and serve as a good reference for other cities that want to implement the same program in the future.

Innovation, Investment and Competition in Broadband and the Impact on America's Digital Economy

A number of claims in the media assert that America is falling behind in broadband, that Americans pay more for broadband of less quality than people of many countries, and that broadband providers don’t compete, innovate or invest. The EU, Japan and South Korea are said to be leading these aspects of broadband. This paper investigates whether there is evidence for those claims. Taking “The Whole Picture: Where America’s Broadband Networks Really Stand” (Bennet 2013) from TPRC41 as a departure point, this paper expands the investigation into key innovations in fixed and wireless networks, capex investment of broadband, intermodal competition for DSL, cable, 4G/LTE and FTTH in the US and EU, and measures of how the US has leveraged broadband to develop its digital economy. The paper also provides microeconomic analysis of municipal broadband and wireless networks. Some key discoveries include that OECD broadband prices for EU countries do not include compulsory media license fees or value added taxes which can add up to $80 per subscription per month. Adjusting for these real costs, American broadband prices are lower. The broadband innovation discussion includes a review of broadband providers’ newest developments, particularly with G.fast and neighborhood wifi. It reviews the role of mobile in stimulating consumer adoption, the domestic digital economy and digital exports. It also highlights how over the top (OTT) services create competition on and for networks. With a comparison to EU, the analysis shows that the level of technology development, not the number of the competitors, drives competition. This is evidenced by 74 percent of broadband subscriptions in the EU being DSL, while broadband subscriptions in the US are more evenly distributed amongst different broadband network technologies. As the EU Digital Agenda Scoreboard and America’s National Broadband Map reports, the US has a higher deployment of next generation networks, twice as much FTTH and nearly 4 times at much LTE. Almost all Americans are covered by LTE, 97 percent, while only 26 percent of Europeans are covered. The US-EU comparisons also test whether there is a telco-cable duopoly in the US. The Infonetics database of communications contains capital expenditure numbers for global private providers for the last decade that was then segmented for each country and per capita. The results show that while the US has just 4% of world’s population, it enjoys nearly one quarter of the world’s broadband investment. A decade ago the EU accounted for more than one-third of the world’s broadband investment; today it is less than one-fifth. This paper is novel in its attempt to attribute the role of broadband to the larger digital economy. It reviews leading studies of the digital economy, including the OECD, ITU, Boston Consulting Group, the United States International Trade Council and the Cisco Visual Networking Index.Lastly, the paper provides policy suggestions based on the conclusions of the analysis. It makes a number of suggestions on how to improve the business case for FTTH, how to improve broadband coverage in rural areas, particularly by accelerating the deployment of wireless infrastructure, and whether the government should support broadband adoption or deployment.This paper is developed expressly for TPRC and has not been presented or published before.

‘A notable personality’: Isabella Fyvie Mayo in the public and private spheres of Aberdeen

Isabella Fyvie Mayo (1843–1914) was already well-known as an author when, towards the end of the nineteenth century, she began performing in public within the local civic sphere. She gave talks, chaired public meetings and wrote to the correspondence columns of the local press at a time when such activities were still relatively rare for women. In itself this introduced an apparent tension between her public actions and her stated view of woman as above all the home-maker. Moreover, although some of her performances were gender-related and took place within female associational networks, most were not. Mayo also challenged class and race ideologies and hierarchies, as she allied herself with the local trades council and trades unions, and with Black and Asian peoples in criticism of racism and imperialism. This article examines how Mayo's moral and religious convictions enabled her to retain her respectability despite some controversial platform presentations.

Community Workforce Agreements

This paper profiles and explores variations in the nature and extent to which community workforce provisions have been effectively negotiated into Project Labor Agreements (PLAs). Community Workforce Agreements broadly aim to advance employment and career models for demographic groups underrepresented in the construction industry but have implications for coalition building and may facilitate a broader role for labor in long-term economic development. These arrangements are the focus of intense policy and research debate, where the issue of using PLAs on publicly funded projects has long been considered. However, the types of provisions regularly included in these PLAs, and the manner in which these provisions vary by geography, time, and size of the Building and Construction Trades Council, are not well understood. This paper profiles the most common provisions and their variability and briefly touches on outcome effects of these agreements to communities, using a content analysis of 185 negotiated agreements over fourteen years, a survey of over 300 building trades councils, and three case studies from projects in Washington, D.C., Cleveland, and New York.

Swedish Production of Sustainable Urban Imaginaries in China

Sweden and the broader region of Scandinavia have been widely praised for their efforts to develop and promote models of sustainability for the rest of the world. Swedish international architecture and urban planning firms are driven by the advantage of being able to brand their projects as “Sustainable and Scandinavian.” In this sense, “the sustainable city” has become a Swedish service to export. In order to strengthen a coherent image of Swedish sustainable urban development, in, 2007, the Swedish Trade Council initiated a marketing platform for eco-profiled companies under the name of “SymbioCity.” This paper seeks to explore the production of imaginaries at play in the performance of “SymbioCity.” It especially addresses the way in which notions of progress and a better city life were presented to Chinese audiences in the Swedish pavilion at the World Expo in Shanghai in 2010. The Swedish pavilion is here regarded as a node in the export of a wider network of Swedish sustainable urban planning services. I argue that the imaginaries that Sweden produces through activities associated with the SymbioCity underlines a view that equates “progress” with the notion of “decoupling” of economic growth and CO2-emissions. In presenting an image of decoupling as a Swedish experience possible to transfer to China, it also establishes views of progress as linear and space as static. Using the term “absent presence” opens up a counter narrative, which turns decoupling as a Swedish experience into a myth and raises the need for urban imaginaries based on a relational view of space.

Sustainability Requirements for Biofuels in the EU: A New Trade and Environment Concern for the WTO?

At the meeting of the WTO Committee on Technical Barriers to Trade (hereinafter, TBT Committee) held on 13–14 June 2012, Argentina voiced its concerns over a measure adopted by Spain restricting imports of biodiesel products into its territory. These concerns were reiterated, jointly with Indonesia, at the meeting of the WTO Council for Trade in Goods of 22 June 2012. On 17 August 2012, Argentina fi led a request for WTO consultations with the European Union (hereinafter, the EU) and Spain, targeting Spain’s restrictions.

Crosby as Foreign Relations Law

This brief essay addresses the Supreme Court's end-of-term decision in Crosby v. National Foreign Trade Council, which preempted Massachusetts's law limiting public procurement from companies doing business in Burma. The essay addresses the perception that Crosby was limited in its implications for foreign relations law, and explores the Court's minimalist approach to inescapably constitutional questions - concluding, in the end, that the Court made foreign relations law without professing to do so, and without fully appreciating its consequences or capitalizing on its benefits.

SMEs in Services Trade - A GATS Perspective

Issues related to small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) supplying services have been raised at earlier stages of the Doha Round in various negotiating contexts and, more recently, at meetings of the Council for Trade in Services. It is difficult, however, to find a common denominator as to whether SME-related concerns might merit attention, from a trade policy perspective, under the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS). Without proposing any priorities, this paper seeks to provide an overview of issues that Members might want to address in the WTO, from promoting compliance with transparency disciplines under existing provisions to advancing the liberalization and rule-making mandates of the GATS with an SME focus.