Joint Initiatives Instead of Multilateralism: A New Reality for the WTO?

The article examines the complexities of the negotiation function of the WTO, in which consensus in decision-making plays an important role. The author systematizes the possibilities and limitations for incorporating the results of plurilateral negotiations (i.e., with a limited number of participants) held within the framework of the so-called joint statement initiatives into the organization's law. The article also analyzes the prospects for integrating specific joint initiatives (internal regulation in services, simplification of investments in development, e-commerce) into the WTO system. The article emphasizes that despite standard features, all initiatives are unique in their content, format, and history and are at different stages of readiness, for Russia, which takes an active part in these joint initiatives, bringing the negotiations to a conclusion. The article criticizes joint initiatives from their primary opponents (India and South Africa), who insist that plurilateral initiatives' participation ignores existing multilateral mandates reached by consensus. Thus, they destroy the multilateral system.The purpose of the article is to review conceptual and practical approaches to forming new trade rules in the WTO system in the context of the multilateral crisis. The author concludes that plurilateral agreements can become a way out of the crisis in the negotiation function of the WTO, as well as the basis for future trade agreements in the system of organization. However, for plurilateralism to be effective and sustainable, it must be linked to multilateral norms and principles. Any plurilateral approach must allow flexibility in forming the basis for negotiating trade rules at multilateral level. It seems that if in the near future the WTO does not take decisive actions to adjust the rules and procedures for the new agreements, the prospects for advancing negotiations and maintaining the relevance of the leading institution of the international trading system will become even bleaker.

Identity politics in Korea-Japan trade dispute and its implications for the international trading system

This paper aims to analyse a trade dispute between Republic of Korea and Japan that started in summer of 2019. The dispute between two neighbours and allies may have wider international implications: currently, this dispute is being considered by the WTO and decision on it could impact how similar disputes are treated in future. This research seeks to identify deeper mechanisms in development of the trade conflict and are rooted in events happened almost a century ago. The paper approaches the dispute from Korea’s perspective. Careful examination of layers of the conflict and a chain of events that preceded and followed it reveals a complex interplay of interests between various social and political groups in Korea. A catalysing role of identity politics in dispute development and subsequent internationalisation is discussed. It is argued that complex interplay of interests in Korean politics had created a venue for subnational players to exert influence on their own government and the regional balance and on how the dispute with Japan is treated. The paper contributes to studies of international actions (political and economic) based on identity that makes societies prefer repudiation of former injustices over immediate economic benefits and how such actions impact international trade. Research confirms that the hyper-interconnected nature of the world creates ways for identity movements to expand into the area of international trade policy. The paper also draws attention to the fact that such disputes undermine existing principles of the international trading system which currently does not have adequate tools for their resolution. Reduction of risks associated with similar disputes is in the interests of the international community and should base on blended solutions that incorporate institutional, political, and judicial elements.

Bridging nestedness and economic complexity in multilayer world trade networks

Understanding the complexity of international trading is critical for a variety of issues ranging from quantifying the competitiveness of individual nations to forecasting the collective evolution of the world economy. Despite the significant progress made in this direction, the international trading system is mainly modeled with a single network in the previous works such as the monopartite product space network and the bipartite country-product network to capture economic complexity. In order to better capture the more detailed dynamics, we characterize the international trading system with a multilayer network with each layer representing the transnational trading relations of a product. This framework immediately reveals the nested structure in each layer and accordingly allows us to develop an alternative measure of the complexity of products. The metric provides a ranking of products’ complexity more consistent with common understanding. The nested structure of a network layer seems to correlate with the asymmetric export relations resulted from the technology barriers, and the evolution of product complexity indicates that the growth of product nestedness is faster than the relevance decay. Finally, we remark a comparison of trade competitive by nestedness between China and the United States to explore the evolution of the economy industries, and the aggregated nestedness index can predict a nation’s future economic growth.