Reshaping The World Trading System

Tracing the history and evolution of the Uruguay Round, this book seeks to explain how it came about, why it covered the subjects it did, what the participants sought, & the twists, turns, setbacks & successes in each sector of the negotiations.

The Uruguay Round, perhaps the most ambitious programme of worldwide negotiations ever attempted on any economic subject, lasted over seven years from 1986 to 1994. The success of the Uruguay Round has defined the shape of the world trading system for the next generation. The agreements reached have set in place a new World Trade Organization and new rules for trade and economic development worth hundreds of billions of dollars in the years ahead. This book traces the history and evolution of the Uruguay Round. It seeks to explain, in an accessible and non-technical way, how the Uruguay Round came about, why it covered the subjects it did, what the participants sought, and the twists, turns, setbacks and successes in each sector of the negotiation.

This text centres on the Uruguay Round of negotiations in 1993. Over one hundred governments took part in these negotiations, defending the interests of countries of all sizes, stages of development and economic structures

A unique study of the internal operation of the GATT/WTO. It examines the role and influence of the invisible yet indispenable international civils servants working at GATT/WTO.

By examining in detail the key role of leadership in the GATT/WTO system, this book offers new insights into trade bargaining from the inception of the GATT through to the current WTO Doha Round.

India plays a key role in addressing multilateral issues like climate change, terrorism, piracy, humanitarian crises, and nuclear disarmament. Scholarly work mapping India’s multilateral behaviour ranges from covering the United Nations to a wide range of fora where India seeks to influence issues that affect its security and development. Yet, there has been no serious exploration of how India concretely negotiates international rules. In this book, Karthik Nachiappan investigates how India negotiated four key multilateral agreements: The Framework Convention on Tobacco Control, The Framework Convention on Climate Change, The Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, and the Uruguay Round Trade Agreement. Based on untapped primary sources including archival documents detailing how negotiations transpired, official records of the Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha, a series of interviews with former Indian negotiators, and newspaper sources, Does India Negotiate? demonstrates that India’s multilateral behaviour is fundamentally strategic—working to shape and ratify international rules that advance core interests while resisting rules that harm those interests.

The publication provides historical and up-to-date insights into how reform can be transformational and progressive in nature and broadens the debate by focusing not only on new pathways for decision-making but also on important issues such as the environment and the SDGs. Finally, it highlights the importance of keeping the multilateral trading system alive for the benefit of all states, particularly for small states, Least Developed Countries and sub-Saharan African countries. WTO Reform: Reshaping Global Trade Governance for 21st Century Challenges, is designed to serve as a valuable resource for government officials, trade negotiators, journalists, academics and researchers who are attempting to sort through the complexities of the organisation and the role they can play in supporting a fairer, more inclusive WTO and multilateral trading system.

When designing a world trading system for the twenty-first century, “Keep calm and carry on” beats “Move fast and break things.” Global trade is in trouble. Climate change, digital trade, offshoring, the rise of emerging markets led by China: Can the World Trade Organization (WTO), built for trade in the twentieth century, meet the challenges of the twenty-first? The answer is yes, Robert Staiger tells us, arguing that adapting the WTO to the changed economic environment would serve the world better than a radical reset. Governed by the WTO, on the principles of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), global trade rules traditionally focus on “shallow integration”—with an emphasis on reducing tariffs and trade impediments at the border—rather than “deep integration,” or direct negotiations over behind-the-border measures. Staiger charts the economic environment that gave rise to the former approach, explains when and why it worked, and surveys the changing landscape for global trade. In his analysis, the terms-of-trade theory of trade agreements provides a compelling framework for understanding the success of GATT in the twentieth century. And according to this understanding, Staiger concludes, the logic of GATT's design transcends many, if not all, of the current challenges faced by the WTO. With its penetrating view of the evolving global economic environment, A World Trading System for the Twenty-First Century shows us a global trading system in need of reform, and Staiger makes a persuasive case for using the architecture of the GATT/WTO as a basis for that reform.