Suchergebnisse

This 2005 compilation of 45 case studies documents disparate experiences among economies in addressing the challenges of participating in the WTO. It demonstrates that success or failure is strongly influenced by how governments and private sector stakeholders organise themselves at home. The contributors, mainly from developing countries, give examples of participation with lessons for others. They show that when the system is accessed and employed effectively, it can serve the interests of poor and rich countries alike. However, a failure to communicate among interested parties at home often contributes to negative outcomes on the international front. Above all, these case studies demonstrate that the WTO creates a framework within which sovereign decision-making can unleash important opportunities or undermine the potential benefits flowing from a rules-based international environment that promotes open trade

A Brookings Institution Press and The General Secretariat of the Organization of American States publication In April 1998 negotiations were launched to create a free trade area among thirty-four countries in the Western Hemisphere. The Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) will eliminate barriers to trade in goods and services and will remove restrictions on investment among the countries of North, Central, and South America and the Caribbean. At the same time, negotiators in the World Trade Organization (WTO) are preparing to begin talks on agriculture and services, with the possibility of a new round of WTO negotiations. Trade policymakers are confronted with a wide range of complex issues and various forums for trade liberalization. Modern trade negotiations no longer focus only on barriers to trade in goods, but include a wide array of issues. This volume aims to clarify these issues. Contributors first address themes, including the evolution of regional arrangements in the Western Hemisphere and the relationship between regional trade arrangements and the multilateral trading system. Robert Hudec provides an in-depth analysis of the provisions and future implications of Article XXIV, the WTO article that regulates regional arrangements; Robert Lawrence examines regional arrangements and their relationship to the multilateral trading system; and Miguel Rodr#65533;guez Mendoza tests several Latin American arrangements to see whether they comply with the WTO criteria. Other contributors discuss key components of the current trade policy agenda, including market access approaches, trade in services, investment, competition policy, intellectual property rights, trade remedy laws, and dispute settlement. Also examined are smaller economies in trade negotiations, and labor and the environment. The book serves both as an analytical examination of

What is "high quality 21st century" anyway? / C.L. Lim, Deborah Elms, and Patrick Low -- An overview and snapshot of the TPP negotiations / Deborah Elms and C.L. Lim -- US PTAS: what's been done and what it means for the TPP negotiations / Jeffrey J. Schott and Julia Muir -- From the P4 to the TPP: transplantation or transformation? / Henry Gao -- Incorporating development among diverse members / Joel Trachtman -- Negotiations over market access in goods / Deborah Elms -- Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) negotiations: rules of origin / Margaret Liang -- Trade in services / Stuart Harbinson and Aik Hoe Lim -- Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement towards innovations in investment rule-making / Julien Chaisse -- The intellectual property chapter in the Trans-Pacific Partnership / Susy Frankel -- Regulatory coherence in the Trans-Pacific Partnership talks / Thomas J. Bollyky -- Environmental issues in the Trans-Pacific Partnership / Jeffrey J. Schott and Julia Muir -- Labour standards and the TPP / Kimberly Ann Elliott -- What is to be done with export restrictions? / C.L. Lim -- Achieving a free trade agreement of the Asia-Pacific: does the TPP present the most attractive path? / Meredith Kolsky Lewis -- APEC and TPP: are they mutually reinforcing? / Carlos Kuriyama -- Coping with multiple uncertainties: Latin America in the TPP negotiations / Sebastian Herreros -- The TPP: multilateralizing regionalism or the securization of trade policy? / Ann Capling and John Ravenhill -- The TPP in a multilateral world / Patrick Low -- Conclusions / C.L. Lim, Deborah Elms and Patrick Low

The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) talks attempt to link together at least nine countries in three continents to create a 'high-quality, twenty-first century agreement'. Such an agreement is intended to open markets to competition between the partners more than ever before in sectors ranging from goods and services to investment, and includes rigorous rules in the fields of intellectual property, labour protection and environmental conservation. The TPP also aims to improve regulatory coherence, enhance production supply chains and help boost small and medium-sized enterprises. It could transform relations with regions such as Latin America, paving the way to an eventual Free Trade Area of the Asia Pacific, or see innovations translated into the global trade regulatory system operating under the WTO. However, given the tensions between strategic and economic concerns, the final deal could still collapse into something closer to a standard, 'twentieth-century' trade agreement

The recent emergence of Joint Statement Initiatives (JSIs) – that is, negotiating initiatives among a subset of the World Trade Organization (WTO) membership – has reignited the debate over law-making in the WTO. As things stand, the WTO operates on the basis of a widespread expectation that consensus needs to be achieved for any decision to be taken. Agreements that produce rights and obligations only among a subset of the membership ('plurilaterals', or Annex 4 agreements) are also subject to the consensus rule and thus remain exceptional. Are JSIs the first move towards redressing the current equilibrium in favour of agreements among a subset of WTO members and, if so, can they be integrated within the current regime absent amendments? Even though consensus decision-making does not necessarily lead to failed negotiations, it is undoubtedly a significant contributory factor when parties hold diverse and unaligned priorities. Contracts signed in the WTO involve increasingly heterogeneous players with diverse priorities. In this article, we argue that the first-best approach to moving away from the current legislative stasis at the multilateral level is to acknowledge that it is high time to consider how to allow an additional degree of 'variable geometry' within the multilateral trading system. A textual legal basis for this approach, however, is missing within the WTO legal order. An acceptable alternative would be to acknowledge that the WTO adjudicators (WTO panelists and Appellate Body members), and not the members, will be the ultimate gatekeepers deciding whether agreements among a subset of members can coexist as part of the current multilateral trade framework understood within the context of international law. A necessary precondition for thisalternative approach to flourish will, of course, be the resolution of the current judiciary crisis of the WTO. In either scenario, what will matter at the end of the day is that inter se agreements (that is, agreements among a subset of the WTO membership) will not affect the enjoyment of acquired rights by non-participants nor frustrate the objectives of the multilateral trading system.

Twenty-first century Africa is in a process of economic transformation, but challenges remain in areas such as structural reform, governance, commodity pricing and geopolitics. This book looks into key questions facing the continent, such as how Africa can achieve deeper integration into the rules-based multilateral trading system and the global economy. It provides a range of perspectives on the future of the multilateral trading system and Africa's participation in global trade and underlines the supportive roles that can be played by multilateral and regional institutions during such a rapid and uncertain transition. This volume is based on contributions to the Fourth China Round Table on WTO Accessions and the Multilateral Trading System, which took place just before the World Trade Organization's Tenth Ministerial Conference in Nairobi in December 2015

Twenty-first century Africa is in a process of economic transformation, but challenges remain in areas such as structural reform, governance, commodity pricing and geopolitics. This book looks into key questions facing the continent, such as how Africa can achieve deeper integration into the rules-based multilateral trading system and the global economy. It provides a range of perspectives on the future of the multilateral trading system and Africa's participation in global trade and underlines the supportive roles that can be played by multilateral and regional institutions during such a rapid and uncertain transition. This volume is based on contributions to the Fourth China Round Table on WTO Accessions and the Multilateral Trading System, which took place just before the World Trade Organization's Tenth Ministerial Conference in Nairobi in December 2015.

Elle a pour but de donner des informations de base aux Membres de l'OMC qui sont en train de définir la ligne de conduite à adopter face à cette nouvelle forme d'échanges. Rédigée par une équipe d'économistes du Secrétariat de l'OMC, elle décrit la complexité ainsi que les avantages potentiels des échanges effectués par Internet, et met en évidence l'extraordinaire élargissement des possibilités qu'offre le commerce électronique, y compris aux pays en développement.

Un estudio efectuado por la Secretaría de la OMC, El comercio electrónico y el papel de la OMC, analiza los beneficios que la utilización de Internet para fines comerciales puede suponer para el comercio en general. El informe, obra de un equipo de economistas de la Secretaría de la OMC, expone a grandes rasgos los elementos complejos y los posibles beneficios del comercio por conducto de Internet.

The study was written as a means of providing background information for the 132 WTO members who are now developing policy responses to this new form of commerce. Written by a team of economists from the WTO Secretariat, it identifies the complexities as well as the potential benefits of trade via the Internet. The book describes the extraordinary expansion of opportunities that electronic commerce offers, including for developing countries.