The WTO at Twenty

The WTO at Twenty

Author: World Trade Organization

Publisher:

Published: 2015

Total Pages: 88

ISBN-13:

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This research explores how multilateralism in trade has worked over the past twenty years - and provides some lessons about how it can work in the future. It describes the WTO's achievements across a number of key areas, including: strengthening the institutional foundations of the trade system; widening its membership and increasing participation; deepening trade integration through lower barriers and stronger rules; improving transparency and policy dialogue; strengthening dispute settlement; expanding cooperation with other international organizations; and enhancing public outreach. It concludes that the WTO has achieved much over its first twenty years but the success of the WTO has inevitably given rise to new challenges.


Least Developed Countries and the WTO

Least Developed Countries and the WTO

Author: H. Hawthorne

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2013-05-07

Total Pages: 183

ISBN-13: 1137269774

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A norm of special treatment for LDCs, created by the UN, has spread to various international organisations including the WTO. Within the WTO evidence of the institutionalization of the norm can be found both in the agreements and legal documents and the way in which the LDCs have been treated by other states. Helen Hawthorne investigates how norms impact on negotiations in international organisations. She shows that few studies of international organisations focus on the role of the weaker states in the organization, the majority focus either on the major states or the emerging economies. By ignoring the role of the poorer, weaker states in the GATT/WTO we are ignoring the history of these states in the organisation and do not get a true picture of the organization, how it operates in relation to them and their impact on the organisation.


Efficiency, Equity, and Legitimacy

Efficiency, Equity, and Legitimacy

Author: Roger B. Porter

Publisher: Brookings Institution Press

Published: 2001

Total Pages: 468

ISBN-13: 9780815771630

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Despite its widely acknowledged contribution to global prosperity over the past half century, the movement toward further liberalization has increasingly been challenged. This collection of essays examine several key issues at the heart of the debate over the multilateral trading system.


Democratizing Foreign Policy?

Democratizing Foreign Policy?

Author: Philip Nel

Publisher: Lexington Books

Published: 2004

Total Pages: 242

ISBN-13: 9780739105856

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Are ordinary citizens capable of shaping foreign policy? To answer this question, fifteen established and emerging scholars use South Africa as a case study to assess the extent to which democratic consolidation can be translated into the realm of foreign policy. Contributors discuss the South African Development Community as an arena of transnational democracy, the impact of European Union trade policy, and the significance of South Africa's controversial 'arms deals' as they explore the opportunities and constraints facing recently democratized societies in the Southern Hemisphere. Democratizing Foreign Policy? Lessons from South Africa provides a broad-ranging assessment--investigating conceptual issues regarding the role of women, think tanks, civil society, labor movements, and the impact of globalization upon the process of foreign policy making--of the opportunities and challenges involved in opening the process of foreign policy making to civil society and the need to do so if the developing world is to better manage the complexities of globalization.


Challenges to Globalization

Challenges to Globalization

Author: Robert E. Baldwin

Publisher: University of Chicago Press

Published: 2007-11-01

Total Pages: 560

ISBN-13: 0226036553

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People passionately disagree about the nature of the globalization process. The failure of both the 1999 and 2003 World Trade Organization's (WTO) ministerial conferences in Seattle and Cancun, respectively, have highlighted the tensions among official, international organizations like the WTO, the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the World Bank, nongovernmental and private sector organizations, and some developing country governments. These tensions are commonly attributed to longstanding disagreements over such issues as labor rights, environmental standards, and tariff-cutting rules. In addition, developing countries are increasingly resentful of the burdens of adjustment placed on them that they argue are not matched by commensurate commitments from developed countries. Challenges to Globalization evaluates the arguments of pro-globalists and anti-globalists regarding issues such as globalization's relationship to democracy, its impact on the environment and on labor markets including the brain drain, sweat shop labor, wage levels, and changes in production processes, and the associated expansion of trade and its effects on prices. Baldwin, Winters, and the contributors to this volume look at multinational firms, foreign investment, and mergers and acquisitions and present surprising findings that often run counter to the claim that multinational firms primarily seek countries with low wage labor. The book closes with papers on financial opening and on the relationship between international economic policies and national economic growth rates.


The History and Future of the World Trade Organization

The History and Future of the World Trade Organization

Author: Craig VanGrasstek

Publisher:

Published: 2013

Total Pages: 704

ISBN-13:

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The History and Future of the World Trade Organization is a comprehensive account of the economic, political and legal issues surrounding the creation of the WTO and its evolution. Fully illustrated with colour and black-and-white photos dating back to the early days of trade negotiations, the publication reviews the WTO's achievements as well as the challenges faced by the organisation, and identifies the key questions that WTO members need to address in the future. The book describes the intellectual roots of the trading system, membership of the WTO and the growth of the Geneva trade community, trade negotiations and the development of coalitions among the membership, and the WTO's relations with other international organisations and civil society. Also covered are the organisation's robust dispute settlement rules, the launch and evolution of the Doha Round, the rise of regional trade agreements, and the leadership and management of the WTO.