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In a bid to save the planet from rising temperatures, the European Union is introducing a carbon border adjustment mechanism-essentially a levy on imports from countries with weak climate rules. The United States, Canada, and Japan are all openly mulling similar proposals. The Biden Administration is adopting new Buy American rules, while countries around the world debate new supply chain regulations to address public health issues arising from COVID-19 and shortages in critical components like computer chips. These public policy initiatives-addressing the central environmental, public health, and economic issues of the day-all likely violate World Trade Organization (WTO) rules governing international trade, as well as regional free trade agreements. This inconsistency poses a political problem domestically and a diplomatic problem internationally, to say nothing of potential consequences authorized by the WTO. To ward off these consequences, governments will seek to justify their measures under a series of exceptions to trade obligations first drafted in 1947. Although governments have invoked these exceptions with increasing frequency in recent years, they have never been tested in the manner that they will be in the coming years. Indeed, a provision in the 2021 Infrastructure and Investment Act-the first major legislative piece of the Biden Administration's economic agenda-contains a provision directing the government to invoke these exceptions to justify measures to manufacture personal protective equipment (PPE) in the United States. This Article seeks to make sense of the exceptions and their role in the legal, political, and diplomatic proceedings that determine the fate of public policies that restrict trade. It distills three paradigms through which to view legal exceptions in international trade agreements. Under the Policy Space Paradigm, governments have the right to violate international obligations so long as the violation is necessary to pursue a public policy goal permitted by an exception. ...

Einer der ältesten transatlantischen Handelskonflikte - der Streit um das europäische Verbot des Imports von hormonbehandeltem Rindfleisch aus den USA - konnte Anfang Mai 2009 bis auf weiteres beigelegt werden. Angesichts der Vielzahl von Handelsstreitigkeiten, die in diesem Jahr an Brisanz gewinnen könnten - allen voran der Fall Airbus-Boeing, der Streit um Genmais und die »Buy-American«-Klausel -, gibt dies Anlass, einmal grundsätzlicher über die verschiedenen Streitschlichtungsforen nachzudenken. Denn die drei zur Verfügung stehenden Institutionen, die Welthandelsorganisation (WTO), der Transatlantische Wirtschaftsrat (TEC) und die bilateralen Dialoge auf politischer und auf Arbeitsebene, eignen sich nicht in gleichem Maße für jede Art von Handelskonflikten

Der Artikel umfasst eine quantitative polit-ökonomische Analyse aktueller und zukünftiger Reformen der Gemeinsamen Europäischen Agrarpolitik unter unterschiedlichen Szenarios einer zukünftigen EU-Osterweiterung und zukünftigen WTO-Verhandlungen. Theoretische Grundlage der Analysen ist ein politisches Tauschmodells von HENNING (2000). Zentrale Ergebnisse der quantitativen Analysen sind: (i) Es lässt sich ein signifikanter Einfluss der Agrarlobby auf die aktuelle und zukünftige Neuformulierung der Agrarpolitik in der EU-15 bzw. erweiterten EU-25 feststellen. (ii) Eine Osterweiterung hätte im Ve rgleich zu verschärften WTO-Restriktionen einen erheblich stärkeren Einfluss auf zukünftige Agrarreformen. Inhaltlich induziert eine Osterweiterung ein deutlich niedrigeres Agrarprotektionsniveau sowie eine geringere Förderung der Multifunktionalität der Landwirtschaft. (iii) Während innerhalb der EU-15 eine qualifizierte Mehrheit für eine entsprechende Agrarreform wäre, würde diese in einer erweiterten EU-25 am "Veto" der osteuropäischen Mitglieder scheitern. Insofern ist das timing der Reform wichtig. (iv) Die Mehrheit der politischen Akteure in der EU-15 bewertet die außenpolitisch induzierten Reformen negativ, während diese aus gesamtgesellschaftlicher Perspektive der EU-15 positiv zu bewerten sind. ; The paper presents a quantitative politico-economic analysis of the present and future CAP-reform induced under different policy scenarios regarding a potential EU-enlargement and future WTO-agreements. Theoretically, the analysis is based on a political exchange model suggested by Henning (2000). Main results are: (i) Both present and future CAP-reforms are significantly biased by the political influence of farmer's lobby. (ii) In quantitative terms an EU-enlargement would induce a much stronger shift in the future CAP when compared to increased WTO-restrictions. Generally, induced CAP-reforms imply a significant lower level of protection and a lower support of multifunctional services of the agricultural sector. (iii) The timing of the reform is important, given the fact that induced CAP-reforms would be supported by a qualified majority within the EU-15, but within the EU-25 these reforms would be defeated by coalition of the new Eastern European member states using their common veto-power. (iv) The majority of political actors within the EU-15 including both politicians and interest groups evaluate induced CAP-reforms negatively in comparison to the status quo, while from society's perspective these imply a positive shift of total economic welfare within EU-15.

On 10 November 2001, China finally acceded to the World Trade Organization (WTO) after a marathon negotiation spanning 15 years. China's membership in the WTO raises interesting questions for both the WTO and China. For the WTO, the question is how to deal with China?a huge country of growing importance as a major global exporter and importer but is still in economic transition. For China, the question is how to implement the numerous obligations in the WTO accession package. This paper sets out by reviewing China's experience in the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) and the WTO. It then discusses the benefits and challenges arising from China's WTO accession, in particular the challenges arising from market access commitments and rules obligations. The author is of the view that whilst the market access commitments are relatively easy to deal with, the rules obligations may have much broader implications on both China and the multilateral trading system. This is especially true for the WTO-minus rights provisions which are embodied in the Accession Protocol and Working Party Report of China. Finally, the author analyses the actions taken by the Chinese government since its WTO accession to implement the commitments and to deal with the challenges, and suggests some trade policy reforms.

"The purpose of this paper is to provide a comprehensive review of Japan's agricultural domestic policy since 1995 in the context of the current international negotiations in the WTO Doha Round, which has as one aim further reductions of trade-distorting support among member countries. An overwhelming majority of farmers in Japan own small plots of rice paddy fields and earn their living mainly on their off-farm income. They go out into rice paddy fields in their spare time as a subsidiary business. Traditional small farming communities are powerful voting groups that seek to maintain their political power. By exerting political pressures on the authorities, farmers can obtain large returns through the manipulation of farmland use regulations, even though such manipulation causes social harm by preventing efficient land use. These inefficiencies in land use are a major reason why Japan is the only country whose food self-sufficiency rate keeps declining in spite of its heavy agricultural protection. In this sense, Japan is in sharp contrast to European and North American countries, where heavy agricultural domestic supports have resulted in an increased output of agricultural commodities and subsequent distortions in international markets. Apparently, Japan's attitude towards agricultural domestic policy reform is one of compliance with the WTO, which requests member countries to reduce their Aggregate Measure of Support (AMS) through trimming trade-distorting (amber box) support and/or transforming traditional-type agricultural subsidies to decoupled-type ones. Japan reduced its amber box support by nearly 80 percent between 1995 and 2000. This drastic reduction is mainly attributable to Japan's removal of rice from the amber box in 1998. In addition, following the WTO's principle of decoupling, Japan launched an extensive agricultural subsidy reform in 2007. This paper, however, shows the ironical realities of Japanese agricultural policy. Neither a sharp reduction of amber box support nor Japan's 2007 reform necessarily mean there will be a reduction of trade-distorting effects. On the contrary, the 2007 reform may in fact stimulate domestic rice production. In 2007, Japan's AMS is as little as 18 percent of its commitment level from the Uruguay Round WTO agreements. In addition, this paper projects that Japan's overall trade-distorting support (OTDS) for 2013 will be 469 billion yen, which is much less than the limit of 1,635 billion yen that is proposed in the modalities under discussion in July 2008 for the WTO Doha Round. Thus, the WTO Doha Round negotiations on domestic support policy are unlikely to restrict Japan's domestic agricultural support policy." --from authors' abstract ; Non-PR ; IFPRI1; Subtheme 2.1; GRP2 ; MTID