Tag Archives: wto

Free trade (not agreements) will make Britain great

To judge from most of the “pro­gres­sive” press and my Twit­ter feed, there is a great deal of ruin in Brex­it. I hear that Britain is so inte­grat­ed into the EU it will be root­less out­side. The UK, I’m told, will need to ‘rejoin’ the WTO after Brex­it. It has no trade agree­ments oth­er than […]

July 20, 2016 – 1:50 pm | By pwg | Posted in Policy, Trade | Tagged , , , , , | Comments (0)

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 […]

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 (0)

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)