Reciprocity Across Modes Of Supply In The World Trade Organization

If negotiations on trade in services at the World Trade Organization are to advance liberalization beyond levels undertaken unilaterally and lead to more balanced outcomes, reciprocity must play a greater role in negotiations. This may be facilitated by the use of negotiating rules that establish credible links across sectors and modes of delivery.

If negotiations on trade in services at the World Trade Organization are to advance liberalization beyond levels undertaken unilaterally and lead to more balanced outcomes, reciprocity must play a greater role in negotiations. This may be facilitated by the use of negotiating rules that establish credible links across sectors and modes of delivery.Negotiations on trade in services at the World Trade Organization (WTO) have so far produced little liberalization beyond levels countries have undertaken unilaterally. One reason: limited application of the traditional negotiating principle of reciprocity.In particular, participants have failed to exploit the scope of the services agreement (GATS) for the exchange of market-access concessions across different modes of supply - cross-border delivery and the movement of capital and workers.Using the Heckscher-Ohlin-Vanek framework, Mattoo and Olarreaga propose a negotiating formula that generalizes the fundamental WTO principle of reciprocity to include alternative modes of delivery.Adoption of this formula as a basis for negotiations could bring greater commitments to liberalization on all modes of delivery, producing substantial gains in global welfare and more balanced outcomes.This paper - a product of Trade, Development Research Group - is part of a larger effort in the group to improve trade policy in goods and services. The authors may be contacted at [email protected] or [email protected].

The publication contains an explanation of Most Favored Nation (MFN) treatment and some of the key issues that arise in its negotiation, particularly the scope and application of MFN treatment to the liberalization and protection of foreign investors in recent treaty practice. The paper provides policy options as regards the traditional application of MFN treatment and identifies reactions by States to the unexpected broad use of MFN treatment, and provides several drafting options, such as specifying or narrowing down the scope of application of MFN treatment to certain types of activities, clarifying the nature of "treatment" under the IIA, clarifying the comparison that an arbitral tribunal needs to undertake as well as a qualification of the comparison "in like circumstances" or excluding its use in investor-State cases.

Trade flows and trade policies need to be properly quantified to describe, compare, or follow the evolution of policies between sectors or countries or over time. This is essential to ensure that policy choices are made with an appropriate knowledge of the real conditions. This practical guide introduces the main techniques of trade and trade policy data analysis. It shows how to develop the main indexes used to analyze trade flows, tariff structures, and non-tariff measures. It presents the databases needed to construct these indexes as well as the challenges faced in collecting and processing these data, such as measurement errors or aggregation bias. Written by experts with practical experience in the field, A Practical Guide to Trade Policy Analysis has been developed to contribute to enhance developing countries' capacity to analyze and implement trade policy. It offers a hands-on introduction on how to estimate the distributional effects of trade policies on welfare, in particular on inequality and poverty. The guide is aimed at government experts engaged in trade negotiations, as well as students and researchers involved in trade-related study or research. An accompanying DVD contains data sets and program command files required for the exercises. Copublished by the WTO and the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development

This is a comprehensive overview of the law and practice of the World Trade Organization. It begins with the institutional law of the WTO, moving eventually to the consequences of globalization. New chapters on Trade in Agriculture and on Government Procurement and Trade.

This comprehensive account of the establishment of the WTO focuses on those who shaped its creation as well as those who have influenced its evolution. It also examines trade negotiations, the WTO's dispute settlement role, the process of joining, and what lies ahead for the organization.

Service Provision and Migration provides a thorough overview of EU and WTO service trade liberalization related to movement of natural persons (GATS Mode 4) and the implementation of the resulting obligations within Dutch and UK immigration law.

Available research suggests that less developed countries have significant competitive advantage over developed countries in three major areas of international trade: agriculture, textiles and clothing (T&C), and cross-border labor mobility. Incidentally, these are also the trade sectors which experienced widespread protectionist measures, especially in developed world, for decade after decade. Under the World Trade Organization (WTO), which replaced the General Agreement on Tariff and Trade (GATT) in 1995, much of the restrictions in T&C trade has been phased out, but still this sector faces much higher tariff and non-tariff barriers than any other manufacturing sector in world economy. The agricultural sector also experienced significant dismantling of deeply entrenched trade barriers under the WTO over the course of last two decades, but the sector still remains plagued with quite extensive domestic supports, export subsidies, and tariff barriers. At the same time, despite both theoretical expositions and empirical trends point to significant potential gains from cross-border labor mobility, the sector remains mired in a complex quagmire of economic and political restrictions around the world. Thus, all three sectors in which less developed countries have exports interests still remain less liberalized than the sectors in which developed countries have exports interests. This book provides an in-depth and up-to-date scholarly analysis of all three trade sectors—agriculture, T&C and cross-border labor mobility—with a penetrating scrutiny of historical backgrounds and developments, crosscurrents of interests and perspectives of both developed and developing countries, and evolving trade patterns and potentials in a more liberalized and globalized world economy. The book also identifies critical economic issues and options for less developed countries in the WTO negotiations for further liberalization of agriculture, T&C, and cross-border labor mobility. This volume will be an important point of reference for students, scholars, and practitioners of international trade, economic development, development economics, and WTO-related issues.