Tag Archives: wto

Governed by the gutless?

Alan Beattie’s new book­let “Who’s in Charge Here” (Ama­zon) is an amus­ing, accu­rate, acces­si­ble account of the cur­rent mess in global finan­cial and trade “gov­er­nance.” Well worth the $3 price. But he draws a “les­son” from his lit­tle his­tory of the crises of 2008–2011 that I find un-satisfying. Who’s in Charge Here is a valu­able …

March 14, 2012 – 2:07 pm | By pwg | Posted in Foreign policy, Ideas, Trade | Tagged , , , | Comments (0)

A bearish view of global governance

If there were a rat­ings agency for the cred­i­bil­ity of “global gov­er­nance” insti­tu­tions, the WTO’s would have been down­graded to a “B” at best[1] after the col­lapse of the Doha Round nego­ti­a­tions. The triple crown of benign global gov­er­nance — a pros­per­ous, well-regulated global “com­mons,” the sov­er­eignty of nation-states and the assent of the gov­erned …

January 22, 2012 – 9:21 am | By pwg | Posted in Ideas, Trade | Tagged , | Comments (0)

Irresitsible engines

Glen Steven’s ques­tions, in his inau­gural War­ren Hogan lec­ture, about the expec­ta­tion of emerg­ing Asia — that they will assume a promi­nent role shap­ing and direct­ing the global finan­cial sys­tem — and about the readi­ness of the West to cede that role to them have been tested in the WTO. So far, they remain unan­swered there… …

December 9, 2011 – 7:37 am | By pwg | Posted in Foreign policy, Trade | Tagged , , | Comments (0)

Eminent call-girls

Aaargh! Yet another knee-jerk call in the Finan­cial Times for “wise” men (and women) to guide WTO out of it’s slough. Third, in lieu of the WTO min­is­te­r­ial, a group of emi­nent peo­ple should be appointed with the task find­ing a way out of the cur­rent dol­drums and out­lin­ing future courses of action. The head …

August 29, 2011 – 10:11 am | By pwg | Posted in Trade | Tagged , , , , | Comments (0)

Competition policy in PTAs

Here’s a surprise…or is it? Accord­ing to the WTO’s 2011 annual report, the most com­mon WTO-extension (WTO-X) pro­vi­sion of pref­er­en­tial trade agree­ments (PTAs) is in a domain that the WTO dropped from its nego­ti­at­ing agenda in 2003: com­pe­ti­tion pol­icy. Research for the WTO’s 2011 Annual Report shows that 90 of the 96 PTAs exam­ined have …

July 29, 2011 – 9:52 am | By pwg | Posted in Trade | Tagged , , | Comments (1)

WTO embraces the irresistible

WTO’s annual World Trade Report for 2011 sig­nals a turning-point for the soon-to-be-Doha-less Orga­ni­za­tion. It attempts to pro­vide a ratio­nale for aban­don­ing WTO’s half-hostile stand-off with the more dynamic uni­verse of pref­er­en­tial trade agree­ments (PTAs) and for embrac­ing PTAs instead. Or, as the sub­ti­tle of the report puts it, in EU-ese, a ratio­nale for mov­ing …

July 27, 2011 – 8:06 am | By pwg | Posted in Trade | Tagged , , | Comments (0)

Trade policies reviewed by WTO

The WTO report on Australia’s trade poli­cies, issued ear­lier this month, urges action to secure the gains from the min­er­als boom “A major eco­nomic chal­lenge con­fronting Aus­tralia, with poten­tial trade pol­icy impli­ca­tions, is to for­mu­late appro­pri­ate macro­eco­nomic and struc­tural poli­cies to facil­i­tate rather than impede adjust­ment to the effects of its greatly improved terms of trade …

April 18, 2011 – 1:35 pm | By pwg | Posted in Policy | Tagged , | Comments (0)