Professor Booth provides an incisive analysis of the performance of the ASEAN economies since the 1997 financial crisis. The major economies, including Singapore, have failed fully to recover the growth momentum that they enjoyed before the crisis. The major explanations for this disappointing recovery are reviewed and it is argued that the key factors include deep seated structural problems that were already coming to the fore before the 1997 crisis. This is particularly the case for Indonesia and Thailand, where successive governments have found it extremely difficult effectively to address these problems. This inability, combined with changes in the regional and global economies, has left these countries vulnerable to adverse trading and financial conditions.

This book is about how the WTO functions as a public organization. It analyzes and evaluates the WTO from a public administration perspective which is absent from the current debate on WTO reforms dominated by the traditional view that only nation states matter, not international organizations.

This book fills a large gap in the literature on trade in services. It focuses on the dynamics of trade and investment liberalization in a sector of considerable technical and regulatory complexity financial services. This volume chronicles the recent experiences of governments in Latin America that have successfully completed financial services negotiations through preferential trade agreements. One of the unique features of this book is the three in-depth country case studies Chile, Colombia, and Costa Rica all written by trade experts who led the negotiations of their respective countries in financial services. The authors offer analytical insights into the substantive content of the legal provisions governing financial market opening and the way such provisions have evolved over time and across negotiating settings. The studies describe how each of the three governments organized the conduct of negotiations in the sector, the extent of preparatory work undertaken before and during negotiations, and the negotiating road maps that were put in place to guide negotiators. Additional chapters complement the case studies by examining the evolving architecture of trade and investment disciplines in financial services and how best to prepare for negotiations in this sector. 'Financial Services and Preferential Trade Agreements' aims to provide practical lessons for policy makers, trade experts, and negotiators in developing countries who are involved in negotiating trade in financial services in the context of regional trade agreements. Academics and development practitioners interested in trade negotiations will also find the information valuable."

This report addresses carbon labeling schemes, a high-profile issue and one that has important economic implications for developing countries. Carbon accounting and labeling instruments are designed to present information on greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) from supply chains. These instruments have become an important awareness-raising channel for governments, producers, retailers and consumers to bring about the reduction of GHGs. At the same time, they have emerged as a crucial element of supply chain management, trade logistics and, potentially, trade regulations between countries. But the underlying science of GHG emissions is only partially developed. Many of these schemes are based on rudimentary knowledge of GHG emissions and have mainly been designed by industrialized countries. There is a concern that these systems do not accurately reflect production processes in developing countries, and that they may even shift consumer preferences away from developing country exports. The report includes an analysis of current and emerging carbon labeling schemes and an assessment of available data, emissions factors and knowledge gaps of carbon footprinting methodologies. The report also analyzes carbon accounting methodologies for sugar and pineapple products from Zambia and Mauritius according to PAS 2050 guidelines, to illustrate whether these schemes accurately represent the production systems in developing countries. The report concludes with a series of recommendations on how carbon footprint labeling can be made more development-friendly

This study examines U.S.-Mexico sugar trade with special attention given to the impact of changes in trade and market environments caused by implementation of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and the introduction of high fructose corn syrup (HFCS). These two factors contributed to shaping sugar markets in the United States and Mexico as well as sugar trade between the two countries. The study includes two sections: (1) a description of the sugar markets from an historic point of view and (2) an empirical study forecasting the market and trade outlook.In section one, characteristics of the sugar industry and transition of the sugar markets brought by the two factors (NAFTA and HFCS) are presented. Adoption of HFCS shaped the U.S. sweetener market in the 1980s and a similar phenomenon appears to be beginning in Mexico. This is explained by not only income growth but also the provisions of NAFTA that facilitate U.S. HFCS to enter the Mexican market and restrict Mexican sugar to the U.S. market. Although Mexico is promised favorable access to the U.S. market under NAFTA, it has not been successful in exporting sugar; rather, the focus has been to suppress HFCS adoption in the domestic market.Next, an empirical study comprised of three analyses is presented. Regression results from the market analysis showed that the estimated price elasticities for both sugar demand and supply are significant and inelastic. These estimates are built into the second model that examines bilateral trade. Results from simulations of the trade analysis indicate Mexico's HFCS adoption rate will determine the magnitude of Mexico's sugar export, which consequently poses a significant influence on U.S. markets. Also the way the U.S. government allocates quotas among exporters will have a significant impact, particularly on the costs of the U.S. sugar program. Game theory analysis is then used to assess what strategies the involved participants will prefer. The results suggest that there will be a conflict of interests and that the U.S. HFCS industry may play an influential role in forming a sugar policy.

This paper proposes improving anti-dumping 's (AD) procedural institutions by enhancing the quality of public governance in the formulation of AD decisions by national authorities. It further examines the AD practices and laws of China and South Africa, arguing that poor governance in emerging economies contributes to their prolific use of AD, usually disproportionate to their small share of world imports. These economies already maintain higher tariff barriers than industrial countries, so that without effective steps to ensure better governance to restrain the arbitrary and proliferating use of AD, they may lose out significantly on the gains from the trade liberalization for which they have been striving for decades.

Trade negotiations are a topic of growing importance, and the popularity of bilateral and regional trade deals as an alternative to slow negotiations at the World Trade Organization (WTO) is growing. But so is the anti-free trade sentiment among environmental and social-justice associations. Today, an important question is how free trade can be designed in a sustainable way. Based on the theoretical concept of two-level diplomacy, Astrid Fritz Carrapatoso analyzes whether domestic consultations help to further integrate trade-related environmental issues into trade agreements. Because the domestic dimension of international negotiations is often neglected, this study focuses on consultation procedures between the government and interest groups. Determinants for the integration of environmental aspects into trade agreements can thus be worked out. The book is aimed at scholars and students in the field of social sciences, economics, environmental studies, journalists interested in global and regional trade issues as well as environmental themes, politicians dealing with trade and environment issues and NGOs and other interest groups working in the environmental and/or trade sector.

In recent years, Africa has emerged as a dominant region in China 's foreign policy. As an emerging center of economic growth in the world economy, China is striving towards establishing a stronger footprint in Africa than ever before. The need to understand this rapprochement has been exacerbated by the current financial crisis. With focus on agricultural trade, this book uses empirical data spanning up to year end 2007 to explain the potential benefits of China growing trade in Africa on South Africa 's economy. The studies cover both China and South Africa 's positions as importer and exporter of agricultural products in each other 's markets. In doing so, they have carefully analyzed data from Chinese and South African sources. In order to give a fresh perspective to the analyses, a section of the work has been devoted to the nature of non-tariff barriers that face South Africa 's exporters into the Chinese market.

Over the past 10 years, the content and application of international trade law has grown dramatically. The WTO created a binding dispute settlement process and in resolving disputes, the judicial organs of the WTO have built up a substantial amount of new international trade law. Emerging from this new WTO process is an international trade law system that is in some respects self-contained and in other respects overlapping and linked to other international legal, economic and political regimes. The 'boundaries' of trade law are now generating enormous interest and controversy which, at a broader level, is subsumed within the debate over globalisation. The detailed development of the rules of international trade is being examined with increasing frequency by scholars, government officials and trade law practitioners. But how does it fit with existing systems? How it is modified by them? How does the international trade law system affect and modify other regimes? This Handbook places international trade law within its broader context, providing comment and critique on contemporary thinking on a range of questions both related specifically to the discipline of international trade law itself and to the outside face of international trade law and its intersection with States and other aspects of the international system. It examines the economic and institutional context of the world trading system, its substantive law (including regional trade regimes) and the settlement of disputes. The final part of the book explores the wider framework of the world trading system, considering issues including the relationship of the WTO to civil society, the use of economic sanctions, state responsibility, and the regulation of multinational corporations. Oxford Handbooks offer authoritative and up-to-date surveys of original research in a particular subject area. Specially commissioned essays from leading figures in the discipline give critical examinations of the progress and direction of debates. Oxford Handbooks provide scholars and graduate students with compelling new perspectives upon a wide range of subjects in the humanities and social sciences.

Visa processing barriers limiting inbound international business and pleasure travelers cost the United States economy billions of dollars in direct revenues while severing vital communications links to the Arab market. Total Arab market import demand has more than doubled since the year 2001, but US corporations attempting to close deals are stymied by visa barriers that turn away even longtime Arab business visitors, including trainees seeking to enter the US. The US has already lost US$62 billion in merchandise trade to competitors maintaining "open door" visa policies through 2005. Cumulative opportunity cost losses are on track to reach a total of $101 billion in 2006 as "turnkey" infrastructure projects, defense, consumer goods, and industrial machinery deals flow to US competitors. IRmep presents specific recommendations for avoiding permanent damage to vital trade and communications links between the US and this key region.

In his pathbreaking "Resource Wars," world security expert Michael Klare alerted us to the role of resources in conflicts in the post-cold-war world. Now, in "Blood and Oil," he concentrates on a single precious commodity, petroleum, while issuing a warning to the United States--its most powerful, and most dependent, global consumer.
Since September 11 and the commencement of the "war on terror," the world's attention has been focused on the relationship between U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East and the oceans of crude oil that lie beneath the region's soil. Klare traces oil's impact on international affairs since World War II, revealing its influence on the Truman, Eisenhower, Nixon, and Carter doctrines. He shows how America's own wells are drying up as our demand increases; by 2010 the United States will need to import 60 percent of its oil. And since most of this supply will have to come from chronically unstable, often violently anti-American zones--the Persian Gulf, the Caspian Sea, Latin America, and Africa--our dependency is bound to lead to recurrent military involvement.
With clarity and urgency, "Blood and Oil" delineates the United States' predicament and cautions that it is time to change our energy policies, before we spend the next decades paying for oil with blood.

Developing countries have a major stake in the outcome of trade negotiations conducted under the auspices of the World Trade Organization (WTO). 'Agriculture and the WTO: Creating a Trading System for Development' explores the key issues and options in agricultural trade liberalization from the perspective of these developing countries. Leading experts in trade and agriculture from both developed and developing countries provide key research findings and policy analyses on a range of issues that includes market access, domestic support, export competition, quota administration methods, food security, biotechnology, intellectual property rights, and agricultural trade under the Uruguay Round Agreement on Agriculture.Material is covered in summary and in comprehensive detail with supporting data, a substantial bibliography, and listings of online resources. This book will be of interest to policymakers and analysts in the fields of development economics and commodities pricing and trade.

In the tradition of "The Prize," Kleveman gives readers the 21st-century chapter on the history, passion, and politics of oil and gas resources and the struggle to control them in a critical part of the world.

World trade is governed by the rules of the World Trade Organization (WTO), the successor to the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT). The WTO sets rules of conduct for the international trade of goods and services and for intellectual property rights, provides a forum for multinational negotiations to resolve trade problems, and has a formal mechanism for dispute settlement. It is the primary institution working, through rule-based bargaining, at freeing trade.In this book, Kyle Bagwell and Robert Staiger provide an economic analysis and justification for the purpose and design of the GATT/WTO. They summarize their own research, discuss the major features of the GATT agreement, and survey the literature on trade agreements. Their focus on the terms-of-trade externality is particularly original and ties the book together. Topics include the theory of trade agreements, the origin and design of the GATT and the WTO, the principles of reciprocity, the most favored nation principle, terms-of-trade theory, enforcement, preferential trade agreements, labor and environmental standards, competition policy, and agricultural export subsidies.

The first scholarly attempt at a comprehensive analysis of a crucial area of international trade law and institutions, this volume provides critical insights into the role played by developing countries in the GATT/WTO committees. It explores how the developing countries have shaped and been shaped by the committees on anti-dumping, textiles, agriculture, and trade and environment, and suggests how these countries can further improve their participation. In doing so, the book challenges established assumptions about how the developing countries have engaged with the developed countries and with one another under the umbrella of the multilateral trading system.

This edited collection explores the legal foundations of the single market project in Europe, and examines the legal concepts and constructs which underpin its operation. While an apparently well-trodden area of EU law, such is the rapid evolution of the European Court's case law that confusion persists as to the meaning of core concepts. The approach adopted is a thematic one, with each theme being explored in the context of the different freedoms. The themes covered include discrimination, horizontality, mutual recognition, market access, pre-emption and harmonization, enforcement, mandatory requirements, flexibility, subsidiarity and proportionality. Separate chapters explore the link between competition law and the single market, the rapidly evolving case law on capital, and the external dimension of the single market. Contributors also address the WTO dimension, and its important implications for the single market project in Europe.

"If there is spin, there is counterspin: "The Selling of 'Free Trade' is a devastating unraveling of yet another Bill Clinton con job. MacArthur tells the NAFTA story in the voices of those who did the spinning and those who suffered from it. It doesn't get much better."--Seymour M. Hersh

"A gripping and fresh analysis of the corporate construction of an onrushing NAFTA and the human damage in its wake. MacArthur demonstrates what happens when an underdeveloped democracy is confronted by an overdeveloped corporation-governmental oligarchy."--Ralph Nader, consumer advocate.

This volume brings together a selection of papers that were prepared as background analyses for a collaborative research capacity-building project, focusing on the WTO negotiating agenda.
Contributors review the results of the Uruguay Round negotiations, discuss developing country concerns relating to the operation of the WTO and assess implementation of WTO agreements.
Contributors quantify the potential benefits of further global liberalization of access to markets for industrial and agricultural products, and assess the relative merits of expanding multilateral disciplines into new areas such as investment, competition, and labor and environmental policies.

An assessment of the impact of NAFTA on Mexico and its implications for the broadening of hemispheric economic cooperation.

Four years after the launching of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), debate over its costs and benefits remains intense -- as revealed late in 1997 when President Clinton failed to get Congress to approve his administration's request for a "fast track" authority to negotiate the broader proposed Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA). This volume of original essays attempts to understand why by looking closely at the effects that NAFTA has already had and sorting out fact from fiction.

The first part of the book examines the impact that NAFTA has had on the Mexican economy, seeking to distinguish those trends that can be attributed to Mexico's participation in NAFTA from those that are more related to domestic politics and long-term structural weaknesses of the country's economy. The second part, using an interdisciplinary approach, studies the wider political and economic ramifications of NAFTA, asking how much NAFTA has helped or hindered the efforts to establish the FTAA. The essays together provide alternative explanations for the anti-NAFTA mood that prevails among important sectors and constituencies within the United States.

The contributors are Peter Andreas, Denise Dresser, Stephan Haggard, Jonathan Heath, Sylvia Maxfield, Manuel Pastor, Adam Shapiro, and Ngaire Woods.

How the environmental provisions in US preferential trade agreements affect both the environmental policies of trading partners and the effectiveness of multilateral environmental agreements. As trade negotiations within the World Trade Organization seem permanently stalled, countries turn increasingly to preferential trade agreements (PTAs) between smaller groups of nations. Many of these PTAs incorporate environmental provisions, some of which require trading partners to enact new domestic environmental laws, and use the enforcement mechanisms available within trade agreements as tools for environmental protection. In Greening through Trade, Sikina Jinnah and Jean-Frederic Morin provide the first detailed examination of how the environmental provisions in US preferential trade agreements affect both the environmental policies of trading partners and the effectiveness of multilateral environmental agreements. They do so through a combination of in-depth qualitative case studies and quantitative analysis of an original dataset of 688 global PTAs. Jinnah and Morin explore the effects of linkages between PTAs and environmental treaties and the diffusion of environmental norms and policy through PTAs. Centrally, they argue that US trade agreements can serve as mechanisms both to export environmental policies to trading partner nations and third-party countries and to enhance the effectiveness of multilateral environmental agreements by strengthening their enforcement capacity. They caution that PTAs are not a panacea for environmental governance; deeper problems of unsustainable consumption and differential power dynamics between trading partners must be carefully navigated in deploying trade agreements for environmental protection.

This volume explores the claims of proponents of free-trade areas and analyzes two principal initiatives associated with recent US trade policy: NAFTA and APEC. The authors conclude that the US should reject preferential trading in favour of the more beneficial goal of non-preferential trading.