Critical Perspectives on the Global Trading System and the WTO series – serie

This comprehensive collection brings together major articles written by leading economists, political scientists and legal scholars to analyse the complexities of the modern global system of intellectual property rights (IPRs) and its relationship with the WTO. The papers selected consider the role of IPRs in the knowledge economy, itself a force for rapid globalisation. They first place IPRs into context as a trade issue and their controversial role within the WTO. Several articles analyse the ability of IPRs to encourage innovation and support markets, emphasising controversial problems in developing countries: special attention is given to the role of patents in biodiversity and essential medicines. Additional contributions provide important theoretical and empirical perspectives on the economics of IPRs in the global economy, including effects on trade, investment, innovation, growth, and technology policies. This authoritative volume will be an important source of reference for scholars and policymakers seeking to understand the development and trade impacts of intellectual property protection.

The past few decades have witnessed a growth in the importance of services in the economy, yet until the 1980s, scholarly literature on the expanding role of trade in services in the world economy remained scarce. This timely research review, edited by a leading analyst in the field, brings together seminal works on the WTO and trade in services published in the last twenty-five years. Areas covered in this important set include the determinants and patterns of trade in services, services in regional integration agreements and the GATS. This book will be of immense value to scholars and practitioners interested in this evolving and increasingly relevant field of study.

In both regional and multilateral trade negotiations farm trade issues have been by far the most contentious and difficult to conclude. WTO rules for agricultural trade have yet to be brought into line with those for other goods. As a result, legal agricultural trade disputes at the WTO account for about 40 per cent of cases to date, even though agriculture accounts for only seven per cent of international trade and five per cent of global output. This authoritative and timely collection presents the most important published articles on this subject. The WTO and Agriculture discusses the following questions: Why have agricultural markets been noted for relatively high degrees of government intervention and in particular for rising levels of protection? How was agricultural trade treated in the GATT and WTO? Has the Uruguay Round Agreement on Agriculture helped to resolve trade conflicts in world markets? What new opportunities and challenges are on the horizon? This collection will be an accessible reference source not only for economists but also for those readers with a law or political science background.

This comprehensive two-volume collection presents key papers on the relationship between international trade and trade policy on the one hand, and poverty and inequality on the other. These relationships highlight the connections between the WTO and income distribution. The analytical and policy context of the volumes is laid out by the editor's introduction and by the first two articles of the collection.The selected papers in the first volume cover macroeconomic links, price links, general equilibrium modeling and, in the second volume, factor markets. Prominent in the second volume are readings on the effects of trade on labour markets in developed and developing countries. Some articles develop the theory of trade and income distribution, but most are empirical and quantitative, stressing the need to test theory and measure key effects before one can make useful policy statements. This book will be invaluable for graduate students, policy makers and professional applied economists.

The steady progress of global economic integration and trade-policy liberalization facilitated by the GATT and WTO over the past half-century has been accompanied by persistent warnings of the consequences for wages, employment and working conditions. Indeed, over the last decade, labor interests in the west have sought to slow the pace of international trade negotiations, seeking some protections in the WTO Charter itself and in individual trade agreements.The central focus of this collection is to provide the reader access to the seminal papers analyzing the accommodation of labor interests within the WTO. This comprehensive volume establishes an understanding of the interaction between global goods, capital and labor markets and the national government institutions that regulate their function. In selecting papers for this volume, the editors have identified the most important contributions to the debate.

The establishment of a multilateral international trading regime is one of the great achievements of post-1945 international diplomacy.The focus of this collection is the history of the international trading system over the past two centuries. Volume I includes an overview of the subject area as well as sections considering the effects of war and peace, the late nineteenth-century backlash, and contemporary views of interwar disintegration. Volume II looks at the issues of hegemony, non-discrimination and reciprocity. It also covers customs unions, preferential trading agreements, trade wars and trade rivalry.This comprehensive two-volume set will be an invaluable source of reference on the origins of globalization.

This two-volume set contains a careful selection of the most significant papers on anti-dumping. These important articles have not only shaped the policy debate in this area but have also substantially influenced how we think about the use and role of anti-dumping in trade relations today. After an initial look at some classic articles, the collection provides an overview of the past two decades of academic research on this subject. The contributions are both empirical and theoretical with the emphasis being on the economic rather than the legal analysis involved. The volumes make these papers easily accessible to a wide audience, including academics, policymakers and all those concerned with anti-dumping issues.

Special and differential treatment (SDT) for developing countries has always been a central, but controversial, element of the GATT/WTO multilateral trading system. A large literature on the subject of SDT has emerged in the last 50 years by both proponents and opponents. The contributions to this volume focus on the rationale, institutional features and economic effectiveness of SDT. The editors have carefully selected a number of key articles with a special emphasis on evaluations of the impact of SDT, especially preferential market access. The book also includes more recent contributions which discuss whether there is a continued need for such special treatment and how it might be designed both from a development objective and from the perspective of the trading system generally. This volume is an essential source of reference for those who follow economic and legal debates on the future of the multilateral trade regime and the role of the developing countries in it.The editors have written an authoritative new introduction which illuminates their choice and highlights the contribution of each article.

Trade and environment issues are achieving ever greater prominence in the WTO. This timely volume contains key papers on this important and highly contentious issue.There is a natural linkage between trade and environment through the use of policy instruments. But when does more trade help or hurt the environment? There is clash between the market-opening principles of free trade, as reflected in the WTO, and the environmental quality and market regulating instincts of environmentalists. This volume examines the conceptual issues involved, as well as the manner in which the subject has been handled by the WTO. It will be an invaluable source of reference for students and researchers alike.

The development of the modern global trading system has been extremely rapid - and not without controversy. The WTO (and its precursor, the GATT) have provided not only a set of multilateral rules and disciplines but also a forum for negotiation and a legal mechanism to settle trade-related disputes. This important two-volume collection includes key papers that provide a pertinent historical perspective as well as addressing the current and future issues that confront the trading system. The first volume focuses on the need for and genesis of multilateral trade rules and disciplines, and also examines the core non-discrimination rules. The second volume looks at reciprocity rules; the notification and surveillance of trade policy; the modalities for negotiating market access; and the difficulty in converting non-tariff trade measures into tariffs.

This insightful volume is a careful selection of the major contributions to the controversy as to whether regional trade agreements harm the multilateral system of trade negotiation. It focuses on key topics such as: the theory of preferential trade agreements; regionalism and multilateralism; the effects of regionalism on the multilateral system; the effects of multilateralism on regionalism; rules of origin and empirical analyses. Scholars and practitioners alike will find this an invaluable set of papers.

This indispensable volume brings together the key contributions to the academic literature on the subject of the political economy of trade policy. Topics covered include unilateral and multilateral trade policies, international trade agreements and administered protection. In their comprehensive introduction, the editors present an insightful discussion of the political economy approach, the development of multilateral trade agreements, the trade and internal motives that guide unilateral trade policy and the features that characterise unilateralism. This volume is essential for professors, researchers and policymakers concerned with international trade policy.

Temporary protection from fairly traded imports under the World Trade Organization (WTO) typically refers to a national government's use of a 'safeguard' tariff, quota or tariff rate quota. Safeguard provisions allow a WTO member's national government to investigate whether a domestic industry is injured because of fairly traded, but imported goods; and then impose a temporary unilateral import restriction that would otherwise be in violation of market access commitments. This book presents some of the key theoretical and empirical research articles in the economics, legal and policy literature examining the structure and use of such temporary import protection programmes. This insightful collection will be an important reference source for economists and researchers interested in international trade policy and the rules of the underlying WTO system.

At a time when political leaders of the member nations are not acting to strengthen the multilateral trading system via the World Trade Organization, it is worthwhile to reflect on the WTO's contributions to global welfare since its inception more than 65 years ago. This volume assembles seminal empirical studies which estimate the past and prospective, national and global economic welfare impacts of GATT/WTO-induced multilateral trade liberalizations. It also touches on the effects of the Uruguay Round's TRIPS Agreement on intellectual property rights, and the benefits from WTO accessions and trade facilitation initiatives. In his authoritative introduction, Professor Anderson points to the numerous additional contributions of the WTO (and its predecessor, the GATT) which, though difficult to quantify, are nonetheless of great value and highlights those areas where further empirical research could shed more light on the net benefits of this important institution.

This volume is a careful selection of the leading legal and economic papers analysing international discrimination in government purchasing. It also includes the WTO agreement that seeks to curb such discrimination. Studies of individual country experiences are also featured, adding a practical dimension to what often appears to be a narrow technical debate. This authoritative and wide-ranging volume will provide trade negotiators, other government officials including purchasing officers, and scholars with a thorough grounding so as to effectively assess proposals for further international rules on government procurement practices, be they in bilateral, regional, or multilateral arenas.

Scholars and policymakers have long been interested in the relationship between international institutions, foreign trade, and interstate conflict. This timely volume presents the most important published articles that address these crucial issues. The articles are organized into three parts. The first part presents and evaluates the core theoretical arguments about the linkage between foreign economic relations and political-military hostilities. The second part addresses the origins of various international institutions designed to influence global commerce, how these institutions operate, and the extent to which they shape the flow and content of overseas trade. The final part analyzes how economic disputes are settled within the World Trade Organization.

In this essential two-volume collection, the editors include key papers on the domestic and global challenges of WTO accession. The first volume explores the intertwined economic, legal, and political dimensions of the process. The second volume explores country case studies and sector-specific issues such as agriculture, services and intellectual property. This comprehensive anthology is an invaluable reference source for scholars and practitioners grappling with the increasing complexity of WTO accession.

Subsidies and countervail have been the subject of much attention in recent decades. In this book, the editors have selected seminal contributions to the literature on the economics of subsidies and countervailing duties in international trade, their role in trade agreements and their treatment in the GATT/WTO system.