Posts tagged…Critical Mass
The WTO’s objectives
Wed, Nov 26 2008On 11-12 December, the Institute for International Trade will host a conference that Andrew Stoler (its Director) and I have arranged as part of our year-long research project to find a better way to negotiate WTO agriculture agreements.
In a paper he has prepared for the conference on 'Variable Geometries', Professor Peter LLoyd of Melbourne University poses a question about WTO's objectives.…
Read more…Doha defeated by contrary goals, rear-view mandate
Sat, Aug 02 2008Joseph Francois argues the Doha Round was strangled by an outdated agenda and unworkable principles, including the MFN rule. We're better-off burying our mistakes, he argues, and moving on.
"In a sense, developing countries are collectively asking that food prices go up and down at the same time. The inconsistency reflects divergent interests across the newer, non-OECD members of the WTO. It also…
Go back? Go forward? Take a powder and lie down?
Fri, Aug 01 2008Well…the third of these is not an option except, possibly, in Europe where dispirited WTO delegates can drift off to the beach for the summer holidays. Simon Evenett—to whose work I've recently refered—is not at the beach, it seems. He has prepared a very timely paper for VoxEU.org on the best way to manage the collapse of the Doha negotiations.
Would ‘critical mass’ agreements in WTO be ‘fissile’ or ‘fusional’?
Mon, Apr 07 2008Here is the paper I presented today to the Melbourne University Center for Public Policy seminar on the Future of the Multilateral Trade System. It asks would 'critical mass' agreements—as recommended by the Warwick Commission—reinforce ('fuse') the WTO's Single Undertaking or would they tend to pull it apart ('fission')? I welcome your comments.
Symposium: Future of the Multilateral Trade System
Thu, Mar 27 2008Monday, 7 April 2008 at the Center for Public Policy at the University of Melbourne. The team of analytical 'heavy-hitters'—I'm sure they love being called that—who served on the Warwick Commission will conduct a full-day symposium on why WTO is in such a mess (or not). I'll be speaking, too, on 'critical mass' agreements and whether they'll lead an explosionin the WTO. Please come…Program over…
Warwick Commission report on ‘The Way Forward’ for WTO
Fri, Dec 14 2007
[Updated post] The University of Warwick mandated the Commission to enquire into the ‘way forward’ for the multilateral trading system. They recommend, among other things, an expansion of 'plurilateral' agreements among a sub-set of the Members of WTO as a way of 'moving forward' and some principles for guiding their adoption. I agree; there is a good case to be made for these agreements that…