The Multilateral Trade Organization

This book explores bilateral and regional trade agreements, and examines how they are changing international trade rules. It offers an important contribution to the current debate on the role of the WTO in regulating international trade and how WTO rules relate to new rules being developed by regional trade agreements.

Om det nuværende og fremtidige verdenshandelsystem

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.

A Brookings Institution Press and the Center for Business and Government at Harvard University publication The multilateral trading system stands at a crossroads. Despite its widely acknowledged contribution to global prosperity over the past half century, the movement toward further liberalization has increasingly been challenged. These essays by leading scholars and trade officials honor Raymond Vernon, one of the architects of the international economic institutions established following the Second World War. The book examines several key issues at the heart of the debate over the multilateral trading system. What are the global efficiency gains from further liberalization? How can efficiency gains be maximized while respecting legitimate claims to sovereignty? Is the trading system affording an equitable distribution of benefits between countries and among various groups within societies? Does civil society have a role in the trading system? What role should the World Trade Organization and its dispute settlement procedures play in resolving disputes and enhancing legitimacy?

This Book charts the evolution of the multilateral trading system over the last half-century and explores the future outlook for the intergovernmental body that constitutes its institutional base and which is responsible for governing the conduct of global commerce, the World Trade Organisation (WTO). The author, a leading authority on international trade, identifies the distinct trends that have characterised the historical progression of the system, from the formulation of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) in 1947 through the WTO's inception in 1995 to the present day. He examines how the GATT/WTO framework has traditionally been used by the major industrial nations as a vehicle to pursue their narrow economic and political interests, at the expense of Third World countries' development prospects. This North-South imbalance continues to pervade the multilateral trade regime today, in the form of inherent inequities in the WTO agreements and their implementation, and attempts to insert potentially damaging new issues into the WTO agenda. Further, this book traces the intimate links between these substantive deficiencies and the WTO's murky decision-making processes, which are dominated by its developed-country members to the detriment of the developing countries.

How can international trade agreements promote development and how can rules be designed to benefit poor countries? Can multilateral trade cooperation in the World Trade Organization (WTO) help developing countries create and strengthen institutions and regulatory regimes that will enhance the gains from trade and integration into the global economy? And should this even be done? These are questions that confront policy makers and citizens in both rich and poor countries, and they are the subject of Economic Development and Multilateral Trade Cooperation. This book analyzes how the trading system could be made more supportive of economic development, without eroding the core WTO functions.

This is primarily a textbook for graduate and upper-level undergraduate students of law. However, practising lawyers and policy-makers who are looking for an introduction to WTO law will also find it invaluable. The book covers both the institutional and substantive law of the WTO. While the treatment of the law is often quite detailed, the main aim of this textbook is to make clear the basic principles and underlying logic of WTO law and the world trading system. Each section contains questions and assignments, to allow students to assess their understanding and develop useful practical skills. At the end of each chapter there is a helpful summary, as well as an exercise on specific, true-to-life international trade problems.

The editors have succeeded in bringing together an excellent mix of leading scholars and practitioners. No book on the WTO has had this wide a scope before or covered the legal framework, economic and political issues, current and would-be countries and a outlook to the future like these three volumes do. 3000 pages, 80 chapters in 3 volumes cover a very interdiscplinary field that touches upon law, economics and politics.