Developing Countries And Global Trade Negotiations

This book brings together an international team of leading academics and researchers to explore the main issues of the Doha Round trade negotiations.

The Doha Round of WTO negotiations commenced in November 2001 to further liberalize international trade and to specifically seek to remove trade barriers so developing countries might compete in major markets. This book brings together an international team of leading academics and researchers to explore the main issues of the Doha Round trade negotiations, such as agriculture, pharmaceuticals and services trade. In particular, it looks at how the formation of the G20 has complicated negotiations and made it harder to balance the competing interests of developed and developing countries, despite rhetorical assertion that the outcomes of this Round would reflect the interests of developing countries. The authors examine both how developing countries form alliances (such as the G20) to negotiate in the WTO meetings and also explore specific issues affecting developing countries including: trade in services investment, competition policy, trade facilitation and transparency in government procurement TRIPS and public health agricultural tariffs and subsidies. Contributing to an understanding of the dynamics of trade negotiations and the future of multilateralism, Developing Countries and Global Trade Negotiations will appeal to students and scholars in the fields of international trade, international negotiations, IPE and international relations.

This book aims at contributing to address some of the challenge that developing countries, especially the least-developing countries, face in the design of trade in service policies and to provide governments with tools to better incorporate services in their export strategies, including negotiations and cooperation with trading partners, and unilateral reforms. This book helps to identify key policy challenges faced by developing country trade negotiators, regulatory policy officials and/or service suppliers. Management of both policy reforms and trade agreements requires investments in sounder regulatory regimes and the establishment of enforcement mechanisms to help countries gradually opening and mitigate any potential downside risks. A successful strategy requires a proper sequencing that through an orderly and transparent process allows to prepare for greater competition. Developing countries face serious resource and administrative constraints to adequately negotiate multiple services agreements that serve their trade interest. For many developing countries, the administrative burden of handling and negotiating multiple trade agreements has become a serious concern and this can hamper their opportunities to obtain adequate market access for their services exports. The book develops in detail the methodological framework for the construction of a database and the core elements that will comprise it, to help countries to organize and manage their services commitments. Little attention has been devoted to the organization/preparation and the development, assessment and conclusion of the negotiation process. The book presents a simulation exercise designed for policymakers, trade negotiators, and trade practitioners working in the area of services. This exercise will help them to better understand the preparatory and negotiating stages of the process leading to liberalization of trade in services.

Publisher Description

Since the 1970s global rule-making with respect to international trade has increased in importance. Political and academic attention has been focused either on global institutions like the IMF, the World Bank, the WTO and UN organisations, or on regional blocs like the EU or NAFTA. As negotiations take place in different international arenas, these arenas themselves take on added strategic significance, with agendas pursued and switched from one arena to another, should one route be blocked. While dominant actors have sought to use arena switching to their advantage, subordinate actors have begun to reactivate alternative arenas of negotiation in order to pursue their different agendas. This book employs a multi-level and multi-arena perspective to analyze global rule-making in international trade. It explains why actors – both state and non-state actors – prefer particular arenas. It also addresses the question of which institutional designs serve the aims of specific groups best and how the rules of the different arenas are related.

Negotiations between governments shape the world political economy and in turn the lives of people everywhere. Developing countries have become far more influential in talks in the World Trade Organization, including infamous stalemates in Seattle in 1999 and Cancún in 2003, as well as bilateral and regional talks like those that created NAFTA. Yet social science does not understand well enough the process of negotiation, and least of all the roles of developing countries, in these situations. This 2006 book sheds light on three aspects of this otherwise opaque process: the strategies developing countries use; coalition formation; and how they learn and influence other participants' beliefs. This book will be valuable for many readers interested in negotiation, international political economy, trade, development, global governance, or international law. Developing country negotiators and those who train them will find practical insights on how to avoid pitfalls and negotiate better.