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WTO Issues
Regional Economic
Cooperation
Developmental
Issues
Call for Publications
WTO Issues
TRADE: A
Democratized WTO in Pause Mode
The breakdown of the July talks on a trade agreement, for the third time
in a row, is testimony that the World Trade Organisation (WTO) has
changed. September 2003, in the Mexican tourist city Cancun. A few days
after the South Korean farmers’ leader, Lee Kyung-hae, committed suicide
during a protest meeting, the ministerial conference of the WTO breaks
down: there is absolutely no agreement on the so-called Doha Development
Agenda, and the 150 members head home.
http://www.worldtradereview.com/news.asp?pType=N&iType=C&iID=192&siD=14&nID=44018
Throwing One Arm Around the World: Why the Failure of the World Trade
Organization to Include Anti-Bribery and Corruption Targets within its Aid
for Trade Program Undermines this Program and How to Bridge These
In the years before he gained prominence as an activist, the singer
Bono and the group U2 released a song in which it admonished: "just like
all the rest, been trying' to throw your arms around the world." Fourteen
years after the release of this song, the World Trade Organization began
its "Aid for Trade" initiative, which aims to coordinate and monitor the
many forms of aid given by donor states and organizations to partner
states in order to bolster a variety of trade and trade-related sectors of
the partner states' economic structure.
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1300037
Controversial
Points in the Discussion on Special Safeguard Mechanism (SSM) in the Doha
Round
The Special Safeguard Mechanism (SSM)
is often quoted as one of the main controversial points that lead to the
failure to the WTO mini-ministerial process in July 2008. Technical
divergences relate to key aspects of the design and operation of the
mechanism but also strong political divergences among exporters and
importers. The purpose of this note is to explain the rationale and
origins of the SSM and the main contentious issues in the current debate.
http://www.southcentre.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=884&Itemid=67
Trade and Culture: Making the WTO Legal Framework Conducive to Cultural
Considerations
The area of trade and culture reveals extreme fragmentation. Instead of
mitigating this state, the UNESCO Convention on the Protection and
Promotion of the Diversity of Cultural Expressions, which entered into
force in March 2007, makes the disconnect between regulatory issues of
trade and culture even more profound. The present article critiques this
politically driven structural disconnection and exposes the Convention’s
failing potential to provide feasible solutions accommodating cultural
policy objectives in a least trade- and competition-distortive manner. In
a second analytical strand ………
http://www.nccr-trade.org/ip-7/trade-and-culture-making-the-wto-legal-framework-conducive-to-cultural-considerations.html
Trips and the Indian Patent Regime
Trade liberalisation, burgeoning technological development and
growing significance of intellectual property rights, have catalysed the
change in global economic paradigm. In tandem with this flux in the
contours of international trade, amendments have constantly been
introduced in the sphere of national laws. A veritable example of the
ripples created by international developments across national frontiers is
that of General Agreement on Tariff and Trade (GATT), later subsumed by
World Trade Organisation (WTO), which inaugurated the free trade regime.
The advent of GATT/ WTO necessitated …………
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1305585
Regional Economic
Cooperation
Deepening Regional Cooperation in the Bay of Bengal: Agenda of the
BIMSTEC Summit
The Second Summit of the Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral
Technical and Economic Cooperation (BIMSTEC) is taking place in New
Delhi in November 2008 under the shadow of a deep financial meltdown
affecting economies all across the globe even though it started as a
crisis of the US financial system. The Asian economies are facing a
compounded effect of the ongoing crisis resulting from the demand
squeeze as well as falling stock markets and currencies due to
outflow of foreign institutional investments. The latest projections
suggest that the ………
http://www.ris.org.in
Multitrack Integration in East Asian Trade: Noodle Bowl or Matrix?
East Asian trade agreements are often described as a complicated
"noodle bowl," which shows links in the region as a snarled,
overlapping, intertwined mass. But this is a misleading
representation-Asia's regional agreements may in fact be creating an
order of a different sort, building the foundations for a stronger
regional trading system. Asian trade arrangements can be more
constructively seen in terms of a trade agreements matrix, in which
multiple negotiations produce an orderly progression of agreements
to liberalize all potential bilateral relationships and move the
region toward a coherent system of freer trade.
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1302443
Does a Free Trade Agreement with ASEAN Make Sense?
India is in the process of signing a free trade agreement (FTA) with
the Association of South-East Asian Nation. On 28 August 2008, India
and ASEAN concluded a Trade in Goods (TIG) agreement which will
operationalise the FTA in merchandise trade. They will be formally
signing this TIG agreement in the ASEAN-India Summit to be held in
Thailand in December 2008. Implementation of the agreement, which
begins from 1 January 2009, will be completed by 2018. Negotiations
between India and ASEAN on services and investment have just
started. India has considerable interest in the ASEAN market ………
http://epw.in/uploads/articles/12856.pdf
The European Union's Trade Negotiations with the ACP: Entrapped by
its Own Rhetorical Strategy?
This paper deals with the Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs)
between the European Union (EU) and the group of African, Caribbean
and Pacific (ACP) countries. It addresses the question why the EU
firmly insisted on upholding the negotiating deadline for these new
trade agreements, despite the very damaging consequences; these
hastily initialed trade deals entailed. Regional integration in the
South was hampered; the development of the friendly image of the EU
got a serious blow; the EU did not manage to include the WTO plus
issues, and the prospect of full EPAs at later stage is not
guaranteed.
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1299648
Free Trade Agreement Between The European Union and
Georgia: How Feasible Is It?
At least up to mid-2008, Georgia had been enjoying rapid GDP growth,
notwithstanding the very serious economic sanctions imposed on it by
Russia since 2006. This growth is expected to continue, but will depend on
increased inflows of FDI and adherence to liberal trade policies.
Internationally, Georgia has been a member of the WTO since 2000 and has
also signed free trade agreements (FTAs) with the CIS countries and most
recently with Turkey. Regarding trade with the European Union, Georgia has
fully liberalized trade for non-agricultural products and significantly
liberalized trade for agricultural goods due to its 2006 tariff
reductions.
http://www.case.com.pl/upload/publikacja_plik/22656091_2008_08%20Ebrief%20Maliszewska%20FINAL.pdf
Developmental
Issues
How do ethical and fair trade schemes affect poor producers? Do we need a
new ‘Good for Development’ label?
Agricultural exports are crucial for growth and employment in many
developing countries, contributing to poverty reduction and rural
development. Agriculture is the main area of comparative advantage for
many countries wishing to expand the market for their exports. At the same
time, consumers in the developed world want to use their purchasing power
to help people in poor countries lift themselves out of poverty, resulting
in the huge growth in ethical trade initiatives seen in recent years.
http://www.odi.org.uk/resources/odi-publications/opinions/115-good-for-development-label.pdf
Bridging the Divide: a human rights vision for global
food trade
The paper found that current international trade rules set at the World Trade
Organization (WTO) conflict with a human rights framework in several ways,
including: discouraging state intervention; using exclusively a trade yardstick
to measure progress; ignoring the most vulnerable groups; dictating only one
economic model; and failing to meet minimum levels of participation and
transparency. A shift toward a human rights framework, based on international
law already adopted by nearly all countries of the world, would require some
important changes. A human rights approach makes explicit the requirement that
available food must be affordable or otherwise accessible to every individual.
http://www.tradeobservatory.org/library.cfm?refid=104458
Commodities Market Speculation: The Risk to Food Security and
Agriculture
high prices, the total developing country food import bill rose from about $191
billion in 2006 to $254 billion in 2007. Today, developing countries are
consuming less food. About 43 percent of more than 27,000 people polled in a
recent 26-nation survey said that they had cut back food consumption as a result
of higher prices. The number of those undernourished and food insecure in the
world has increased along with prices. Over the last year, riots broke out over
food prices, lack of available and affordable food, and insufficient food aid.
http://www.iatp.org/iatp/publications.cfm?accountID=451&refID=104414
Strategies for the
People's Republic of China's Small and Medium Enterprise Development within the
National Innovation System
With deregulation and globalization, it has become necessary for the People's
Republic of China (PRC) to consider an approach that would further attune its
economic engine toward sustained growth. This paper argues that certain sectors
of the economy—in particular, the small and medium enterprise (SME) sector—may
play a significant role in terms of any further reforms of the PRC's national
innovation system, which in turn could spur continued growth. It highlights how
issues such as innovation, research and development, and strategic clustering
………
http://www.adbi.org/files/2008.11.05.rp73.prc.strategies.national.innovation.system.pdf
Challenges in agribusiness
The development of agribusiness generates employment among rural masses and
reduces poverty. The growth of agribusiness---- manufacturing industries like
textile, leather, furniture, food, paper, beverage, etc. --- depend upon the
progress of agriculture sector. At present about 7,20,343 agribusiness firms are
working in different sectors in the country. The trends in global agribusiness
are changing at a rapid pace and the traditional practices in agriculture seem
obsolete today. Now this sector is more concerned with delivering customer value
…………
http://www.worldtradereview.com/news.asp?pType=N&iType=A&iID=191&siD=14&nID=43696
Call for
Publications
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