Posts tagged…Warwick
A better way to negotiate on agriculture
Thu, Dec 04 2008Next week, at the Institute for International Trade in Adelaide, Andrew Stoler (Institute Director, former Deputy Director-General of WTO) and I are presenting a conference in our project on future frameworks for WTO agriculture agreements.
In addition to our own research (some linked here) we've commissioned the help of leading agriculture and trade policy research centers in Brazil, China,…
Read more…The unravelling trade consensus
Tue, Aug 26 2008An much better account of the real, secular challenges facing the WTO than Larry Summers' jumbled column (see the Sidebar) can be found in Simon Evenett's dissection of the failure of the Doha Round, written almost a year ago. I think Simon has set the bar too high, but his call—presaging that of the Warwick Commission—for a period of reflection and a new start for the WTO is and intriguing…
The collapse of the Doha Round negotiations
Wed, Jul 30 2008
There's no joy in having predicted this outcome.
As explained (at some length) in my earlier post, I don't believe that the draft agreement on the table represented anything like the 'substantial improvement' in global markets that was the goal of the Doha Declaration that launched the talks in 2001. There were too many status exceptions, category exceptions, and opportunities for manipulation.…
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…