Beyond Formal Obligation: The Trade Regime and the Making of Political Priorities

2005 ◽  
Vol 18 (3) ◽  
pp. 403-424
Author(s):  
ANDREW LANG
Keyword(s):  
World Trade Organization ◽  
World Trade ◽  
Formal Analysis ◽  
Vulnerable Groups ◽  
Trade Regime ◽  
Trade Law ◽  
Close Analysis ◽  
The World ◽  
Political Choices ◽  
Incomplete Picture

The World Trade Organization is often criticized for requiring its members to adopt policies which can detrimentally affect poor and vulnerable groups. Close analysis of the relevant provisions of WTO law, however, often reveals international trade obligations to be significantly more flexible than is commonly suggested. The author argues, however, that, on its own, detailed formal analysis of trade law paints an incomplete picture. Trade law also influences political choices by framing debates about trade policy – determining the arguments which can be made, who can make them, and in what forums they can be presented. The author illustrates this argument through a focused analysis of one controversy relating to the trade regime, namely the ‘GATS and water’ debate, and in particular the question of whether the General Agreement on Trade in Services may require the ‘privatization’ of water infrastructures.

Lawful Remedy or Illegal Response? Resolving the Issue of Foreign Subsidization Under WTO Law

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-24
Author(s):  
Victor Crochet ◽  
Marcus Gustafsson
Keyword(s):  
European Union ◽  
World Trade Organization ◽  
World Trade ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Fair Competition ◽  
Trade Law ◽  
International Trade Law ◽  
The World ◽  
Shed Light ◽  
Do So

Abstract Discontentment is growing such that governments, and notably that of China, are increasingly providing subsidies to companies outside their jurisdiction, ‘buying their way’ into other countries’ markets and undermining fair competition therein as they do so. In response, the European Union recently published a proposal to tackle such foreign subsidization in its own market. This article asks whether foreign subsidies can instead be addressed under the existing rules of the World Trade Organization, and, if not, whether those rules allow States to take matters into their own hands and act unilaterally. The authors shed light on these issues and provide preliminary guidance on how to design a response to foreign subsidization which is consistent with international trade law.

scholarly journals The Unanswered: Indirect Protection through the GATT

2019 ◽  
pp. 83-130
Author(s):  
Charlotte E. Blattner
Keyword(s):  
World Trade Organization ◽  
International Law ◽  
World Trade ◽  
Trade Law ◽  
The World ◽  
Academic Discussion ◽  
The Law ◽  
Restrictive Measures ◽  
Indirect Protection

This chapter explores the breadth and scope of options available to states that want to indirectly protect animals across the border, in particular under the law of the World Trade Organization (WTO). The flurry of academic discussion at the intersection of animal and trade law was sparked by the Appellate Body’s Seals report in 2014, but it failed to cut deep enough to link to the doctrine of jurisdiction under general international law, and efforts to enter negotiations to more thoroughly protect animals in trade never materialized. The author advances the discussion and fills a gap in scholarship by examining whether and how states can use trade law to indirectly protect animals abroad through import prohibitions, taxes and tariffs, as well as labels. An analysis of the legality of trade-restrictive measures that indirectly protect animals under the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) precedes a discussion of justifications for violating the agreement.

Was the Way Really Long?

2012 ◽  
pp. 70-73
Author(s):  
S. Sutyrin
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Trade ◽  
World Trade Organization ◽  
Russian Federation ◽  
World Trade ◽  
Regulatory Environment ◽  
Summer Period ◽  
Reasonable Time ◽  
Trade Regime ◽  
The World ◽  
The Russian Federation

18 years summer period of negotiations on the Russian Federation joining the World Trade Organization doesn't look like something extraordinary. It is clear that there exist not any rigid, objective criteria for a candidate to match. Actually, an applicant may rather quickly become a WTO member merely having agreed to implement all required changes relating to foreign trade regime and corresponding regulatory environment within a reasonable time. In case of Russia the purpose of negotiations was to assure accession conditions acceptable for the country. The results are to be estimated in the nearest future.

How Ready Is Indonesia to Open Government Procurement à la TPP?

2019 ◽  
pp. 441-458 ◽  
Author(s):  
Wahyuni Bahar ◽  
Joseph Wira Koesnaidi
Keyword(s):  
World Trade Organization ◽  
World Trade ◽  
Social Protection ◽  
Current System ◽  
Government Procurement ◽  
Open Government ◽  
Economic Regulation ◽  
Goods And Services ◽  
The World ◽  
Political Choices

Government procurement is an important area of economic regulation in every nation, and free trade and comprehensive economic agreements are becoming central venues for adopting procurement standards. Based on arguments for efficient government spending on goods and services, opening commercial opportunities for local firms abroad, and larger concerns of social protection and policy pursued through procurement decisions, countries like Indonesia now need to consider whether they are ready to go down this path. This chapter analyzes in some detail the requirements of the World Trade Organization (WTO)’s Government Procurement Agreement and similar provisions of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) to assess which reforms, and political choices, Indonesia would need to make to bring its current system into compliance with these international norms. It argues that the costs, benefits, and challenges must be carefully weighed and counsels for a cautious and phased-in opening.

Network Power and Globalization

2003 ◽  
Vol 17 (2) ◽  
pp. 89-98 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Singh Grewal
Keyword(s):  
World Trade Organization ◽  
World Trade ◽  
Critical Mass ◽  
High Technology ◽  
Trade Law ◽  
The World ◽  
New Imperialism ◽  
Global Coordination ◽  
Key Aspects ◽  
Network Power

Against the celebratory view of globalization comes the charge that globalization represents a kind of empire. But this charge requires a framework in which we can identify the power at work in apparently voluntary processes, such as learning English or joining the World Trade Organization. I advance a concept of “network power” to explain the dynamic that drives many key aspects of globalization. A network is united via a standard, which is the shared norm or convention that enables coordination among its users, such as a language that allows communication among its speakers. A widely used standard is more valuable than a less used one, simply because it governs access to a larger network of people. The idea of network power generalizes this fact to describe globalization as the rise to global dominance of standards that have achieved critical mass in language, high technology, trade, law, and many other areas. It also characterizes the rise to dominance of a successful standard as involving a form of power. While these new standards allow for global coordination, they also eclipse local standards, rendering them unviable to the extent that they prove incompatible with dominant ones. Therefore many of the choices driving globalization are only formally free and, in fact, are constrained because the network power of a dominant standard makes it the only effectively available option. It is this dynamic that generates much of the resentment against globalization and the criticism that it reflects a new imperialism.

Does Flexibility Promote Cooperation? An Application to the Global Trade Regime

2008 ◽  
Vol 62 (3) ◽  
pp. 477-505 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jeffrey Kucik ◽  
Eric Reinhardt
Keyword(s):  
World Trade Organization ◽  
Recent Work ◽  
World Trade ◽  
International Agreements ◽  
Global Trade ◽  
Prior Work ◽  
Trade Regime ◽  
Selection Processes ◽  
The World

Do flexibility provisions in international agreements—clauses allowing for legal suspension of concessions without abrogating the treaty—promote cooperation? Recent work emphasizes that provisions for relaxing treaty commitments can ironically make states more likely to form agreements and make deeper concessions when doing so. This argument has particularly been applied to the global trade regime, the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) and its successor, the World Trade Organization (WTO). Yet the field has not produced much evidence bearing on this claim. Our article applies this claim to the global trade regime and its chief flexibility provision, antidumping. In contrast to prior work, this article explicitly models the endogeneity and selection processes envisioned by the theory. We find that states joining the WTO are more likely to adopt domestic antidumping mechanisms. Likewise, corrected for endogeneity, states able to take advantage of the regime's principal flexibility provision, by having a domestic antidumping mechanism in place, are significantly more likely to (1) join the WTO, (2) agree to more tightly binding tariff commitments, and (3) implement lower applied tariffs as well.

scholarly journals The Nature of Remedies in International Trade Law

2004 ◽  
Vol 65 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Sungjoon Cho
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
International Trade ◽  
World Trade Organization ◽  
World Trade ◽  
The United States ◽  
High Profile ◽  
Trade Law ◽  
International Trade Law ◽  
The World ◽  
The U.S

On August 30, 2002, the World Trade Organization (WTO) authorized the European Communities (EC) to suspend its tariff concessions and other obligations toward the United States to the extent of U.S. $4 billion for the latter’s failure to comply with the Appellate Body’s decision that the United States had violated the WTO rules, in particular, the WTO Subsidy Code by providing the prohibited subsidies to foreign sales corporations (FSCs) in the form of tax breaks (the FSC Article 22.6 Report). The sheer scale of the EC’s suspension in response to the U.S. violation is unprecedented, far surpassing the suspensions authorized in two previous cases that invoked the WTO enforcement mechanism, Banana III and Hormones. At first glance, this dramatic finale for such a high-profile case might be welcomed as an impressive revelation of the real achievement of the WTO system equipped with teeth, unlike its predecessor the old GATT.

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