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WTO Farm Talks Sputter into Action
Senior officials met with the chair of the WTO’s agriculture committee this week to informally exchange ideas on how to reach a compromise on liberalising trade in the agriculture sector, one of the pillars of the WTO’s Doha Round. The chair, Ambassador Crawford…
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WIPO Committee on Traditional Knowledge Fails to Agree on Course of Future Work
Despite intense negotiations that carried on late into Friday evening, the WIPO Intergovernmental Committee on Intellectual Property and Genetic Resources, Traditional Knowledge and Folklore (IGC) failed to agree on modalities for future work. Initially, countries seemed willing to work out an intersessional mechanism to facilitate progress on a range of issues on which they have…
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EU Tackles Illegal Logging, but Environmentalists Want More
The EU’s Environment Commissioner announced two new initiatives to combat illegal logging and deforestation on Friday, but environmental groups quickly slammed the measures for not going far enough to address the problems. Nearly one fifth of the timber that enters the European market comes…
- In Brief
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Canada, EU to Negotiate Trade Pact
Canada and the EU are expected to begin preliminary negotiations toward a comprehensive economic partnership. The transatlantic deal was announced at the annual Canada-EU Summit in Quebec City last week, where recently re-elected Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, French President Nicolas Sarkozy -…
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Krugman Wins Nobel for Work on International Trade
Paul Krugman, an American economist, professor and columnist for The New York Times, was awarded the Nobel Prize in economics last week for his “analysis of trade patterns and location of economic activity.” Krugman made a significant contribution, the Nobel Committee said, by demonstrating…
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US Tops Competitiveness List
The World Economic Forum released its annual Global Competitiveness earlier this month, detailing and ranking the strengths and weaknesses of 134 countries that account for 98 percent of the world economy. The US once again topped the list as the most competitive country despite…
- WTO in Brief
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Overturning Panel, Appellate Body Issues Mixed Ruling in Hormone Dispute
In the latest development in an ongoing transatlantic dispute over the European ban of imported hormone-treated beef, the WTO’s Appellate Body issued a mixed ruling on 16 October that said that while Canada and the US can impose trade sanctions on the EU, Brussels…
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Anti-Dumping Cases on the Rise in the First Half of 2008, WTO Reports
The Secretariat of the WTO reported this week that there was an increase in the number of anti-dumping investigations initiated during the first six months of 2008, as compared with the same period in 2007. The number of new anti-dumping measures applied also…
- Events
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Events
Coming up: 23 - 29 October 23-26 October, Padova, Italy. VI INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON ETHICS AND ENVIRONMENTAL ETHICS 2008. Goal of the event is to encourage the debate on issues of social, environmental and economic justice concerning climate change. In particular, attention will be…
- Resources
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Resources
ANNUAL REVIEW OF DEVELOPMENT EFFECTIVENESS 2008 - SHARED GLOBAL CHALLENGES. World Bank, October 2008. This report focuses on assessing the World Bank’s development effectiveness, with attention to the provision of global public goods - including the global trading system, biodiversity conservation - and…