AFTER CANCUN: POSSIBILITIES FOR A NEW NORTH-SOUTH GRAND BARGAIN ON TRADE. By Thomas Palley (Foreign Policy in Focus, November 2003). According to the author, the failure of the Cancun WTO ministerial may eventually come to be viewed as marking the end of the current global trade agenda. Given the existing lack of multilateral consensus, the immediate future promises a shift of negotiating strategy toward bilateral agreements. This shift is a transitional moment, that brings with it opportunity and risk. The opportunity is to craft an historic new progressive multilateral trade agenda based on a North-South grand bargain involving agricultural trade policy reform in return for trade-related labour and environmental standards. The risk is that bilateral negotiations could be used to weaken existing labour protections and introduce undesirable investment rules that create global lock-in. For this reason, the debates over FTAA, CAFTA, and other country agreements matter very much, since they will impact the space for future multilateral agreements. To view the article visithttp://www.fpif.org/papers/cancun2003.html.
THE STATE OF FOOD INSECURITY IN THE WORLD 2003. By the Food and Agriculture Organisation (2003). According to the report, international trade can have a major impact on reducing hunger and poverty in developing countries. Participation in trade allows access to larger markets and opens up opportunities for specialisation in production and economies of scale. This can be of special importance for developing countries, particularly for smaller ones where the limited size of domestic markets discourages full use of production potential. To access the report, see: ftp://ftp.fao.org/docrep/fao/006/j0083e/j0083e00.pdf.
GM CROPS? COEXISTENCE AND LIABILITY. By the Agriculture and Environment Biotechnology Commission (November 2003). The report recommends that the main aim of government policy on coexistence of GM and other crops must be to facilitate consumer choice to the greatest possible extent, while allowing UK farmers to respond to present and future national and international market demand. If GM crops were to be grown commercially, farmers growing them should be required to follow legally enforceable crop management protocols designed to achieve at least the 0.9 percent threshold. To access the report, see: http://www.aebc.gov.uk/aebc/coexistence_liability.shtml.
"Development, trade, and the environment: how robust is the Environmental Kuznets Curve?" in ENVIRONMENT AND DEVELOPMENT ECONOMICS 8 (4, 2003): 557-580. This paper assesses the strength of the Environmental Kuznets Curve (EKC) which posits an inverted-U relationship between per capital income and pollution. Specifically, answers are sought to the following related questions: (1) How robust is the EKC relationship?; (2) To what extent can the EKC relationship be explained by changing trade patterns as opposed to growth-induced pollution abatement?
"The Mercosur dispute resolution system" by Christian Leathley in JOURNAL OF WORLD INVESTMENT 4, (5, 2003): 787-826. This article offers a comprehensive look at Mercosur’s dispute resolution system which regulates State-to-State and investor — State dispute procedures. It describes how the system works and offers a critical overview of its effectiveness. The current system exhibits shortfalls in terms of accessibility to private investors, overt political influences, the absence of an independent supra-national judicial body, the speed of the process and the incomplete character of Mercosur’s legal acts. Looking to the future, consideration is given to the factors that will affect the development of the Mercosur dispute resolution system, especially to the array of external influences including the World Trade Organization, the North American Free Trade Agreement, the Free Trade Agreement of the Americas and the growing trend of bilateralism.
"Civil liability regimes as a complement to multilateral environmental agreements: sound international policy or false comfort?" by Anne Daniel in RECIEL 12 (3, 2003): 225-241. The author reviews recent civil liability development in multilateral environmental agreements (MEAs), examining whether the development of international liability regimes reflects sound international environmental policy. She describes the challenges that existing civil liability regimes have faced, analyses progress made in negotiations on liability and redress mechanisms in the context of, inter alia, the Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants, the Convention on Biological Diversity and the Rotterdam Convention on Prior Informed Consent and recommends policy approaches to MEAs that might provide alternative or complementary methods of achieving some of the goals identified by proponents of civil liability regimes.