The World Trade Organization at ten years

2005 ◽  
Vol 4 (3) ◽  
pp. 341-354 ◽  
Author(s):  
PETER SUTHERLAND
Keyword(s):  
Public Good ◽  
World Trade Organization ◽  
World Trade ◽  
The Political ◽  
Legal Analysis ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Past ◽  
Political Perceptions ◽  
The World ◽  
Public Consciousness

In reflecting on the record of the World Trade Organization during its first ten years of existence I have chosen to take a ‘political’ view. In doing so, I am aware that other observers might well draw quite different conclusions from my own. However, it is often the political perceptions that count. Indeed, in the past few years, as the WTO has gained recognition in the public consciousness, the work of the institution has sometimes been deflected from what strict economic or legal analysis might suggest as the ‘best courses’ for the overall public good.

Protecting Global Brands: Toward a Global Norm

2002 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 99-112 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kate Gillespie ◽  
Kishore Krishna ◽  
Susan Jarvis
Keyword(s):  
World Trade Organization ◽  
World Trade ◽  
Resource Constraints ◽  
Developed Countries ◽  
Industrialized Countries ◽  
Newly Industrialized Countries ◽  
The Past ◽  
The World ◽  
Managerial Implications ◽  
Trademark Protection

In 1995, the World Trade Organization bound member countries to new standards of foreign trademark protection. Developed countries were given a year to bring their national trademark regimes into compliance. Other countries were allowed from 5 to 11 years. In the past 7 years, governments have taken many steps to reach compliance. Nonetheless, many countries fall short of the envisaged global norm. To better understand the challenges of the past several years, the authors focus on the state of national trademark regimes on the eve of the establishment of the World Trade Organization. The authors particularly address how contagion influence, resource constraints, and xenophobia affected treaty participation, domestic trademark law, application processing, and the relative treatment of foreign and domestic applications. The authors analyze data for 62 countries, which suggest that distinct patterns of foreign trademark protection existed for developed countries, newly industrialized countries, less developed countries, and transitional economies. The authors explain the managerial implications of these findings and argue that there is evidence that countries are moving toward global norms in trademark protection. However, an international treaty is the beginning, not the end, of this process.

Trade and Environment in the World Trading System: A Decade of Stalemate?

2001 ◽  
Vol 1 (4) ◽  
pp. 1-9 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marc Williams
Keyword(s):  
Sustainable Development ◽  
World Trade Organization ◽  
World Trade ◽  
Trade And Environment ◽  
Trading System ◽  
The Past ◽  
System A ◽  
The World ◽  
World Trading System

This article assesses the first decade of the trade-environment debate, and explores the possibilities for reconciliation of competing positions on trade-environment issues. It explores three aspects of the continuing conflict over trade and environment in the World Trade Organization. Rejecting both optimistic and pessimistic accounts of the past and future of the trade-environment debate it argues that important changes have occurred that have transformed the debate. But, despite the normalization of the trade-environment debate around the concept of sustainable development significant points of contention remain among the various participants.

Sovereignty and Developing Countries: Current Status and Future Prospects at the WTO

2009 ◽  
Vol 22 (2) ◽  
pp. 395-409
Author(s):  
HANS MAHNCKE
Keyword(s):  
Developing Countries ◽  
Economic Development ◽  
World Trade Organization ◽  
World Trade ◽  
World Economy ◽  
Current Status ◽  
Future Prospects ◽  
The Past ◽  
The World ◽  
Global Powers

Globalization, as evidenced in increased trade, economic development, and the emergence of new global powers, has meant that the world economy has undergone significant changes over the past two decades. The World Trade Organization (WTO) is more than a potent representation of these developments, it is often seen, along with its predecessor, the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), as having enabled the process of globalization. However, there are profound concerns about what lies ahead in an increasingly complex economic and regulatory setting, in particular for developing countries (DCs).

scholarly journals The Political Economy of the Chinese Market Economy Status given by Argentina and Brazil

Revista CS ◽  
2014 ◽  
pp. 47-76 ◽  
Author(s):  
Francisco Urdinez
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
World Trade Organization ◽  
Market Economy ◽  
World Trade ◽  
The Political ◽  
Chinese Government ◽  
Chinese Market ◽  
The World ◽  
Status Recognition

When China signed a Protocol of Accession to the World Trade Organization in December 2001, other country members were allowed to consider China as a Non-Market Economy until the end of 2016. Taking into account this restraint, the aim of this paper is to answer the following question: can the Market Economy Status Recognition (MES) be measured by a de-facto compliance? The variable used to measure the compliance is the number of antidumping investigations initiated by each country. Hence, the countries which recognize China as a market economy would have a fewer antidumping investigations than the countries that are still treating Beijing as a Non Market Economy, which is the key reason of why the Chinese Government has been campaigning vigorously since 2001 to gain a MES status by a larger number of its economic partners.

Multilateralizing Investment Facilitation at the WTO: Looking for the Added Value

2020 ◽  
Vol 23 (4) ◽  
pp. 973-988
Author(s):  
N Jansen Calamita
Keyword(s):  
World Trade Organization ◽  
International Organizations ◽  
Foreign Investment ◽  
World Trade ◽  
Dispute Settlement ◽  
Added Value ◽  
The Past ◽  
The World ◽  
Organization Framework ◽  
Investment Facilitation

ABSTRACT Since 2017, World Trade Organization members have been engaged in Structured Discussions aimed at agreeing on a multilateral framework on investment facilitation for development. The negotiations focus on establishing binding disciplines for investment facilitation, which will likely be made subject to the World Trade Organization Dispute Settlement Understanding. Investment facilitation, however, is that something states already do. Over the past decade, states have adopted record numbers of reforms at the domestic, regional, and international levels to facilitate foreign investment. These reforms show no signs of slowing. This begs an important question regarding the World Trade Organization initiative: given all the attention that investment facilitation already receives from states and international organizations, how, if at all, would the conclusion of a World Trade Organization Framework bring added value to states, i.e. value that cannot be achieved by ongoing efforts? Examining this question is the focus of this paper.

Biotechnological Patents and Morality

2011 ◽  
pp. 141-151
Author(s):  
Jakkrit Kuanpoth
Keyword(s):  
Developing Countries ◽  
Intellectual Property ◽  
World Trade Organization ◽  
Intellectual Property Rights ◽  
World Trade ◽  
Patent Protection ◽  
Patent Law ◽  
Legal Analysis ◽  
The World ◽  
Micro Organisms

The chapter deals with ethical aspects of patent law and how the global patent regime helps or hinders the development of a developing country such as Thailand. More specifically, it discusses Article 27.3 of the World Trade Organization (WTO) Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS), which states that countries may exclude methods of medical treatment, plants and animals (but not micro-organisms) from patent protection. It also provides legal analysis on the issue of whether developing countries can maximize benefits from the TRIPS morality exception (Article 27.2) in dealing with biotechnological patenting.

High Stakes: US-China Trade Disputes under the World Trade Organization (WTO)

2013 ◽  
Vol 41 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 352-380 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ka Zeng
Keyword(s):  
World Trade Organization ◽  
World Trade ◽  
Dispute Settlement ◽  
Bilateral Trade ◽  
Cost Benefit Analysis ◽  
Dispute Settlement Mechanism ◽  
Trade Disputes ◽  
The Past ◽  
China Trade ◽  
The World

Abstract This paper examines US-China trade disputes under the World Trade Organization (WTO) and argues that Chinese leaders are increasingly resorting to the WTO’s dispute settlement mechanism to target issues of most critical concern to domestic constituencies. The following overview of the WTO disputes initiated by China suggests that China’s WTO disputes tend to be dominated by cases involving anti-dumping duties (ADs) and countervailing duties (CVDs). The disproportionate share of such trade remedy cases in China’s WTO cases needs to be viewed in light of the fact that China has become the leading target of such cases worldwide in the past decades. The above pattern of China’s WTO initiation is explicable within the leader cost-benefit analysis, which would lead us to expect Chinese leaders to use the WTO DSM either to open foreign markets for Chinese businesses or to shield domestic firms from perceived unfair foreign trade practices. This paper further argues that the significant expansion of bilateral trade relations in the past decades has provided opportunities for Chinese leaders to identify or threaten retaliation against anti-protectionist groups in the other country in order to mobilise them against the disputed measure.

IV. CHINA AND THE WORLD TRADE ORGANIZATION: THE FIRST DECADE

2011 ◽  
Vol 60 (3) ◽  
pp. 788-798
Author(s):  
Lisa Toohey
Keyword(s):  
World Trade Organization ◽  
World Trade ◽  
Dispute Settlement ◽  
Foreign Firms ◽  
The Political ◽  
Controversial Issues ◽  
Political Arena ◽  
The World ◽  
Wto Agreements ◽  
Equality Of Access

By the end of 2011, China will have been a member of the World Trade Organization (the WTO) for a decade. While China has undergone dramatic changes to implement commitments contained in its Protocol of Accession,1debate continues as to whether China has adequately complied with its obligations under the WTO Agreements in both letter and spirit. Some of this debate remains in the political arena, where China is censured over such issues as currency controls and or equality of access for foreign firms like Google; however, it is in the legal arena, and specifically within the WTO's Dispute Settlement Body, that some of the most controversial issues are raised, both against and by China.

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