Search

The UK will need to negotiate more than 100 new trade agreements if it leaves the EU customs union. \ud \ud • Negotiations with the WTO and the EU are the most pressing. If the UK does not manage to reset its place in the WTO before leaving the EU, this could lead to legal and diplomatic complexities and possible trade conflicts. \ud \ud • Trade partners in regional and bilateral agreements may want to change the terms of their existing agreements; and the UK may wish to include services trade – which is of increasing importance to its commercial performance – in these arrangements. \ud \ud • To reduce the negotiation load, the UK could opt for temporary ‘peace clauses’ to maintain existing terms of trade during negotiations. \ud \ud • In view of the narrow base of domestic expertise in conducting trade negotiations, the UK will need to recruit and train a large body of new specialist staff; these negotiators will have to consult with domestic vested interests as well as negotiate with the European Commission and external governments. \ud \ud • If the UK is to expose its markets to greater competition, it also needs to be ready to help potentially disadvantaged groups at home to adjust. \ud \ud • To ease negotiations with third countries, joining existing (or intended) mega-regional agreements could be advantageous; however, doing so may also result in loss of sovereignty. \ud \ud • The most immediate challenges the UK faces arise from its reduced negotiating power as a sole actor, the initial lack of personnel and training in trade negotiation, time pressure, and concerns that the EU will seek to play hardball in order to discourage other member states from leaving the union.

South Africa is a developing country. It has been an active participant in the multilateral trading system since the creation of the new democratic government in May 1994. However, the country's role in the history of the multilateral trading system before this was very different. South Africa was a founding member of the GATT in 1947. The apartheid regime positioned itself within the organisation as a developed country and behaved as such. This study examines over 800 GATT documents on the country's participation in the GATT from 1947 to 1994. These documents have not been examined or studied before in any comprehensive manner.Although there is a vast literature on the history of the GATT, much of this is written from an orthodox standpoint, especially on the role of developing countries (Bhagwati, 2002; Srinivasan, 1998; Hoekman and Kostecki, 1995; Martin and Messerlin, 2007). More recently, there has been some revisionist academic literature on the GATT (Wilkinson, 2006, 2014; Wilkinson and Scott, 2008). This empirical study contributes to the work of the revisionists.An examination of the GATT documentation raises three main questions that this study sets out to examine. First, why did Apartheid South Africa project itself as a developed country in the GATT from its formation in 1947? Second, how was South Africa able to implement its domestic protectionist and discriminatory policies and still adhere to the ideas and principles of the GATT? And third, why did the major players in the GATT reflect a tendency to deviate from the main ideas and principles of the GATT in their trade practices vis-a-vis South Africa?John Ruggie's work on ideas and multilateralism and his concept of 'embedded liberalism' to describe the post-war multilateral economic institutions, including the GATT, is utilised to analyse the above questions.This study argues that while Ruggie's work is helpful in setting out the main ideas that drove the creation of the GATT and that became the core principles of the organisation, this analytical work on the multilateral trading system is incomplete and will need to be extended by other theoretical work. The GATT documentation reveals that there was a gap between the ideals of the multilateral trading system and the practice of both South Africa and the developed countries within the organisation. While they both professed their commitment to the GATT ideas of liberalisation, non-discrimination and reciprocity, their practices often tended towards protectionism, discrimination and the exclusion of developing countries. To explain this contradictory behaviour this study has drawn on the revisionist history of the GATT. This extended analytical framework is utilised to analyse the GATT documentation on South Africa.

This chapter explores the emergence of the existing global energy governance architecture, as the "overarching system of public and private institutions that are valid or active" in the energy field. It focuses on intergovernmental energy organizations that trace their origins to the post-World War II emergence of producers in what is called the "Global South," and the impact on oil-consuming advanced economies in the North of the former's clout in world politics of the 1970s. The chapter looks at the United Nations and the role of several of its constituent parts in governing energy. It examines the benefits and challenges of building a global energy governance architecture that is more integrated internally while at the same time better able to capitalize on overlaps and synergies with other global policy domains, especially those in climate change and international development. The chapter concludes with an assessment of the future of global energy governance, including the prospects for a World Energy Agency.