UNCTAD TRADE AND DEVELOPMENT REPORT 2004. On 16 September, UNCTAD releases its annual trade and development report (TDR). This year, the report focuses on the connections between international trade and finance. According to the TDR, greater openness to international trade and finance has not enabled developing countries to establish a virtuous interaction between external financing, domestic investment and export growth. The TDR 2004 argues that, to achieve this, a feasible development agenda has to be based on the concept of "coherence". Here, a fundamental question is how to address the problems of trade imbalances originating in the monetary and financial system. To access the report visit http://www.unctad.org
ADDRESSING THE IMPACT OF PREFERENCE EROSION IN BANANAS ON CARIBBEAN COUNTRIES. NERA Economic Consulting and Oxford Policy Management OPM (August 2004). This report, commissioned by the UK Department for International Development, sets out to assess the impact on Caribbean countries of the reform — or tariffication — of the EU Common Organisation of the Market in Bananas (COMB). The first part of the study, by NERA, examines the impact of different tariff levels on the European market while the second part, by OPM, goes on to examine the development options for Caribbean countries given the price impact of different tariff levels on individual countries. The study concludes with recommendations for future aid strategies. To access the report visit http://www.dfid.gov.uk/pubs/files/impactpreferenceerosion.pdf
UTILIZING TRIPS FLEXIBILITIES FOR PUBLIC HEALTH PROTECTION THROUGH SOUTH-SOUTH REGIONAL FRAMEWORKS. By Sisule Musungu, Susan Villanueva, and Roxana Blasetti (South Centre, April 2004). This study analyses the constraints that developing countries have faced in their attempts to utilise the flexibilities in the WTO’s Agreement on Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) for public health protection. It argues that strategic regional South-South frameworks will significantly help developing countries devise ways by which national constraints in the use of TRIPS flexibilities can be overcome. To access the report visit http://www.southcentre.org/publications/flexibilities/flexibilities.pdf
"Representing Transnational Environmental Interests: New Opportunities for Non-governmental Organization Access within the World Trade Organization". By Michael Mason in ENVIRONMENTAL POLITICS 13 (3,2004) pp. 566-589. What opportunities does the WTO offer for the representation of transnational environmental concerns by NGOs? Even prior to the Seattle protests in 1999, social movement pressure prompted WTO to increase its engagement with civil society groups, derestrict documents, facilitate NGO-oriented symposia and briefings, and extend access to ministerial meetings. A survey of NGO participants in recent WTO environment briefings reveals their positions on current and proposed modes of civil society input, the feasibility and legitimacy of which are discussed. Their recent coalition-building with development NGOs on specific trade campaigns is evidence that transnational environmental NGOs have grasped the need to appeal to developing country interests in order to widen political support for ecological concerns within the WTO.
"’Core Labour Standards’ and the Transformation of the International Labour Rights regime". By Philip Alston in the EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF INTERNATIONAL LAW 15 (3, 2004), pp. 457-521. The past decade has seen a transformation of the international labour rights regime based primarily on the adoption of the 1998 ILO Declaration on Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work, and the widespread use of the concept of ‘core labour standards’. Notwithstanding the enthusiasm which has greeted these innovations, it is argued that the resulting regime has major potential flaws, including: an excessive reliance on principles rather than rights, a system which invokes principles that are delinked from the corresponding standards and are thus effectively undefined, an ethos of voluntarism in relation to implementation and enforcement, an unstructured and unaccountable decentralisation of responsibility, and a willingness to accept soft ‘promotionalism’ as the bottom line. The regime needs urgent reforms, such as anchoring the principles firmly in the relevant ILO standards, giving greater substance to the Follow-up mechanism, extending monitoring under the Declaration to include an empirical overview of practice under the bilateral and regional mechanisms which have invoked ILO principles and the Declaration itself, and adequately funding the commitment to workers’ rights.
"A WTO Multilateral Framework For Competition Policy and Trade-Induced Development: Debunking Their Complementarity In Developing Countries". By M. Rafiqul Islam in the JOURNAL OF WORLD INVESTMENT AND TRADE 5 (3, 2004) pp 491-508. The issue of competition has assumed prominence in the global marketplace due to increasing private anti-competitive practices which thwart multilateral trade liberalisation under the WTO. This article examines the history of efforts to devise a global competition policy in the context of the relationship between competition policies and the economic development needs of developing countries. It examines, in particular, the implications that a multilateral or universal competition policy would have for developing countries. It concludes that a WTO multilateral competition policy is a prematurely conceived, rickety idea under the existing circumstances of global trade, especially given the inherent problems of the WTO system, which it examines in some detail.
"The WTO and Agriculture: Why Is India So Furious?" By Suman Modwel in JOURNAL OF WORLD INVESTMENT & TRADE 5 (2, 2004) pp 289-319. This article attempts to explain the perspective of India (and a number of other developing countries) in the continuing negotiations at the WTO on agriculture in the special context of the importance of this sector and of the extremely poor who subsist on it. In juxtaposing this with the incredible levels and varieties of continuing protectionism in the developed world, it attempts also to explain why India is so discontented with the way the trade talks are proceeding.
"Greening Trade in the Americas: an agenda For Moving Beyond the North-South Impasse". By Carolyn Deere in the JOURNAL OF WORLD TRADE 38 (1, 2004) pp 137-153. In November 2003, governments from across the Western Hemisphere met in Miami for the third Summit of the Americas Trade Ministerial to advance negotiations for a Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA). At the first Summit of the Americas in Miami in 1994, governments acknowledged the intersections of their social, economic and environmental priorities, calling for progress on all three policy fronts. However, fraught with conceptual and political problems, the ongoing negotiations for a new regional trade agreement for the Americas stand poised to squander the opportunity to refocus attention on this original vision. Conceptually, the FTAA negotiating framework fails to address expressly or coherently either development or environment priorities, despite the fact that all countries in the Americas have articulated clear domestic objectives for each dimension.
Electronic Resources
UN-NGLS NEW MILLENNIUM DEVELOPMENT GOALS INTERNET PORTAL.The UN Non-Governmental Liaison Service (UN-NGLS) has created a new portal that provides a basic introduction to the Millennium Development Goals, describes UN, Civil Society, and State action on the goals, and offers tools, links, listserves, and a calendar. The Millennium Development Goals were adopted by all 189 member countries of the United Nations in September 2000. They have gained popularity in development circles and elsewhere as a key tool to unite disparate and sometimes competing development agendas, while being a powerful political tool to hold governments and international institutions accountable. For further information see http://www.un-ngls.org/mdg