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En se fondant sur l’affaire Canada – Certaines mesures affectant le secteur de la production d’énergie renouvelable, ce mémoire traite l’applicabilité de l’article XX du GATT de 1994 aux mesures d’incitation à la production d’énergie renouvelable. En effet, la mise en œuvre du programme de tarifs de rachat garantis et des mesures visant l’incitation à la production d’énergie renouvelable en Ontario (Canada) a été contestée par-devant l’Organe de règlement des différends en raison de l’incompatibilité de ces mécanismes de soutien avec le droit de l’OMC. En outre, il convient de noter que les mesures de promotion aux énergies renouvelables constituent des moyens ambitieux envisagés par certains membres de l’OMC en vue d’atteindre les objectifs de protection de l’environnement et de développement durable. À travers cette étude nous voulons vérifier la possibilité de concilier l’octroi de ces mesures de soutien avec le droit de l’OMC. En s’appuyant sur les dispositions de l’article XX b) et g) du GATT de 1994 relatives à la protection de l’environnement, nous cherchons à savoir dans quelle mesure l’affaire précitée pourrait contribuer à la mise en œuvre de l’exception environnementale. Au terme de notre analyse, nous proposons une meilleure adaptation de la jurisprudence de l’OMC aux mesures de soutien en faveur du développement des énergies renouvelables., Based onthe WTO’scaseCanada –Certain measures affecting the renewable energy generation sector, this research addressesthe applicability of article XX of the GATT 1994 to incentive measures for the production of renewable energy. In fact, the implementation of the FIT program and incentives for renewable energy generation in Ontario (Canada) has been objectedby the Dispute Settlement Body due to inconsistency of these support mechanisms with WTO law. Furthermore, it should be noted that support measures for renewable energies constitute ambitious means envisaged by some WTO members to achieve the objectives of environmental protection and sustainable development.In this context, this research attempts to demonstrate the possibility of reconciling the granting of these support measures with WTO law.Based on the provisions of Article XX (b) and (g) of the GATT1994 relating to the protection of the environment, we seek to determine the extent to which this case could contribute to the implementation of the exception environmental law in WTO law.At the end of this analysis, this research underlines the importance of taking intoconsiderations the measures to encourage the development of renewable energies in the jurisprudence of the WTO.

This paper uses a case study approach to explore the effects of NAFTA and GATT membership on innovation and trade in the Mexican soaps, detergents and surfactants (SDS) industry. Several basic findings emerge. First, the most fundamental effect of NAFTA and the GATT on the SDS industry was to help induce Wal-Mart to enter Mexico. Once there, Walmex fundamentally changed the retail sector, forcing SDS firms to cut their profit margins and/or innovate. Those unable to respond to this new environment tended to lose market share and, in some cases, disappear altogether. Second, partly in response to Walmex, many Mexican producers logged impressive efficiency gains during the previous decade. These gains came both from labour-shedding and from innovation, which in turn was fuelled by innovative input suppliers and by multinationals bringing new products and processes from their headquarters to Mexico. Finally, although Mexican detergent exports captured an increasing share of the U.S. detergent market over the past decade, Mexican sales in the U.S. were inhibited by a combination of excessive shipping delays at the border and artificially high input prices (due to Mexican protection of domestic caustic soda suppliers). They were also held back by the major re-tooling costs that Mexican producers would have had to incur in order to establish brand recognition among non-Latin consumers, and in order to comply with zero phosphate laws in many regions of the United States

When in 1923 Jacob Viner wrote the book, Dumping: A Problem in International Trade, he probably did not imagine that the system devised to eliminate the effects of dumping (i.e., antidumping) would itself become a problem. However, as we celebrate the 100th anniversary of the first antidumping law, the situation is quite different from that observed by Viner. Although his economic analysis on the nature and causes of dumping remains valid, the debate shifted in the early 1990s and now centers on the widespread use of antidumping. This paper documents the evolution of antidumping by examining the pattern of adoptions of antidumping laws and the statistics pertaining to the worldwide caseload. One striking result is the important role played by the new users of antidumping. Rankings based on the intensity of use magnify this conclusion, suggesting that the true dimension of the antidumping phenomenon is only partly revealed by the usual statistics on usage.

We propose a decomposition of social welfare when consumers' preferences are described by quasi-linear utility functions. In our decomposition, social welfare is expressed as the sum of consumers' gross utilities and trade surplus of non-numeraire goods, whose consumption enters utility functions non-linearly. This decomposition is useful especially when we assess the impact of trade liberalization on individual countries. We propose a decomposition of social welfare when consumers' preferences are described by quasi-linear utility functions. In our decomposition, social welfare is expressed as the sum of consumers' gross utilities and trade surplus of non-numeraire goods, whose consumption enters utility functions non-linearly. This decomposition is useful especially when we assess the impact of trade liberalization on individual countries.

Lascaux’Proposals in Penser une démocratie alimentaire Volume II – Proposition Lascaux entre ressources naturelles et besoins fondamentaux, F. Collart Dutilleul et T. Bréger (dir), Inida, San José, 2014, pp. 15-38; International audience; The recognition of a cultural exception dates from as far back as 1947 with the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), which constituted the first stage in the globalisation of trade founded on the principle of free trade but allowed for legal exceptions for certain cultural products, in particular for cinematographic films and national treasures. This is still the case today with the World Trade Organisation (WTO), the successor to GATT. However, GATT was in reality only a part of a fuller international treaty which also was to provide for legal exceptions to free trade for “primary commodities”: those of agriculture, forestry, fishing and minerals. This treaty was the Havana Charter, signed by 53 countries in March 1948. Because of a situation extraneous to the Charter, it has never been ratified or put into effect, unlike GATT itself. The result is that “cultural exceptions” are recognised, while “exceptions for food” are not.

International audience; While the WTO and Doha Development Round do not deal with labour issues – they leave this to the ILO – the main countries that conclude free trade agreements incorporate labour provisions, which vary in terms of stringency. Sanctions are rarely used, and fears that “social clauses” would serve protectionist purposes have proved to be unfounded. Labour provisions are designed to meet a variety of sometimes conflicting goals, by means of different mechanisms aimed at improving labour practices and promoting Decent Work; the author makes a number of suggestions in this regard.

We study the endogenous network formation of bilateral and multilateral trade agreements by means of hypergraphs and introduce the equilibrium concept of multilateral stability. We consider multi-country settings with a firm in each country that produces a homogeneous good and competes as a Cournot oligopolist in each market. Under endogenous tariffs, we find that the existence of a multilateral trade agreement is always necessary for the stability of the trading system and that the formation of preferential trade agreements is always necessary for achieving global free trade. We also find that global free trade is efficient but not necessarily the only multilaterally stable trade equilibrium when countries are symmetric (heterogeneous) in terms of market size. We derive conditions under which such a conflict between overall welfare efficiency and stability occurs.

La crisis económica mundial ha tenido como consecuencia la contracción de los mercados externos en la demanda de los productos fabricados localmente, ocasionando excedentes en la producción nacional derivada de la caída en la demanda tanto nacional como internacional y la cancelación de operaciones previamente pactadas. Dichos excedentes de producción se verán reducidos mediante la disminución en los niveles de producción, las posibles ventas internas y la colocación de los mismos en los mercados internacionales que se mantengan abiertos ante y pese a la crisis. Frente a esta posibilidad las salvaguardas comerciales se consideran adecuadas para proteger a los productores nacionales en contra de dificultades económicas no previstas resultantes o no de la liberalización comercial. La idea es que los países afectados estén en una mejor disposición para reducir sus barreras al comercio y que la flexibilidad dada por las salvaguardas incremente en el largo plazo la estabilidad del sistema del comercio mundial.

Few topics have influenced the international free-trade regime in recent years as much as its relation to environmental legislation. This working paper conceptualizes and discusses the conflict of objectives be-tween trade and environment often oversimplified in academic discourse. It argues that the structural changes of the free-trade regime in 1994 have led to a regulation towards more restrictive environmental standards based on a comparison of two dispute settlement procedures, US Tuna and US Shrimp. At this juncture, however, it is important to look more critically at the causes of this development. A detailed analysis of both disputes refutes explanatory models which argue from a supranational as well as a social-constructivist perspective and conclude that an institutional or normative change towards a “Greening of the GATT” has taken place. This paper argues that an intergovernmental perspective which analyses the decisions of the WTO in light of the rational interests of its member states is a more reasoned approach. In order to guarantee effective and sustainable environmental protection in the future, there must be a substantial reorientation of national preferences, which up until now has not occurred., Das internationale Freihandelsregime wurde in den vergangenen Jahren von wenigen Themen so stark geprägt, wie von seinem Verhältnis zum Umweltrecht. Der vorliegende Beitrag konzeptualisiert und prob-lematisiert den im wissenschaftlichen Diskurs häufig verkürzt dargestellten Zielkonflikt zwischen Handel und Umwelt. Die Annahme, mit der strukturellen Änderung des Freihandelsregimes 1994 habe sich seine Regelsetzung zugunsten restriktiverer Umweltstandards entwickelt, wird anhand eines Vergleiches der beiden WTO- Streitschlichtungsverfahren, US-Tuna und US-Shrimp, bewiesen. Die Ursachen dieser Ent-wicklung gilt es jedoch kritisch zu hinterfragen. Ein detaillierter Blick auf beide Streitfälle entkräftet supra-national sowie sozialkonstruktivistisch argumentierende Erklärungsmodelle, die die Schlussfolgerung zu-lassen, es habe ein institutioneller bzw. normativer Wandel hin zu einem „Greening of the GATT“ statt-gefunden. Stattdessen, so die These, eignet sich vielmehr ein intergouvernementaler Erklärungsansatz, der Entscheidungen der WTO vor dem Hintergrund der rationalen Interessen ihrer Mitgliedsstaaten reflek-tiert. Um künftig effektiven und nachhaltigen Umweltschutz zu garantieren, bedarf es einer substantiellen Neuorientierung staatlicher Präferenzen, die bisher nicht stattgefunden hat.

The paper discusses various milestones in the process of multilateral trade negotiations, pinpoints current challenges facing the world trading order, and proposes possible ways out of the persistent impasse. Hufbauer argues that the success of the multilateral approach is at least partly because the GATT departed from the strictly unconditional definition of the most-favored nation (MFN) rule in the late 1970s already. Regional agreements such as NAFTA complemented, rather than hindered, multilateral trade liberalization in the past. The political economy of further multilateral liberalization has become increasingly complicated since countries such as Brazil, China, and India have emerged as relevant players. Against this backdrop, Hufbauer expects regionalism to become the strongest vehicle for delivering liberalization in the future. This could still leave a bright future for the WTO as a “house of plurilaterals”, i.e., agreements on specific issues such as services liberalization with conditional MFN treatment of varying membership.

Article XXIV of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) lays down the legal principles with which regional trade agreements have to conform. Based on these principles, WTO members have the mandate to determine the legality of Regional Trade Agreements (RTAs) under the GATT. Article XXIV permits both regional and bilateral preferential trade agreements leading to the formation of customs unions and free trade areas, and seeks to integrate them in the multilateral trading system envisioned for the world. SADC is an RTA created under this Article. Notwithstanding the controversies surrounding the provisions and interpretation of Article XXIV, this paper seeks to establish the extent to which the SADC Protocol on Trade and free trade area comply with WTO rules. An analysis of selected Article XXIV provisions and the SADC Trade Protocol provisions will be undertaken in trying to establish this compliance.

The agrarian question is nowadays at the heart of destructive effects of the neoliberal globalization. Imposed in extreme inequality condition, free-trade policies overwhelm millions of peasants in the South. The GATT and WTO agricultural agreement is shaped to serve the main objective of opening South markets for North agricultural surplus. This agreement exposes South peasants to the competition with highly productive producer, while the logic of globalized accumulation deprives them of any possibility of catch-up.In Tunisia, the adoption of a neoliberal agricultural policy, since the application of SAP, is the cause of structural alteration of peasant and family farmers production and reproduction conditions: unfavorable price evolution, exclusion from finance system, restricted access to land, inefficiency of services….The ultimate consequence is a tendency towards the deterioration of peasants' real income. However, heterogeneity of real production conditions is the foundation of an emphasis of socio-economic differentiation among farmers.With the signing of WTO agreements and the free-trade agreement with the EU, it has become more and more difficult for peasant to survive. Moreover, the mechanisms which allowed them to survive have reached their limits. The new orientations have only increased the socio-economic disparities in the rural world. Small peasants are more and more marginalized and condemned to exodus without assuring employment possibilities. More than small peasants' proletarization, it is the ruin of rural regions. Poverty, unemployment and food dependency are the main consequences., La question agraire est aujourd’hui au coeur des contradictions et des effets destructeurs de lamondialisation néolibérale. Les politiques de libre-échange imposées dans des conditions d’inégalité extrêmeaccablent des centaines de millions des paysans du Sud qui sont, désormais menacés dans leur survie.Façonné pour servir le seul objectif d’ouverture des marchés du Sud aux excédents agricoles du Nord,l’Accord Agricole du GATT et de l’OMC les met en concurrence avec des producteurs hautement productifsalors que, la logique de l’accumulation mondialisée leur interdit toute possibilité de rattrapage.En Tunisie, l’adoption, depuis la mise en application du PAS, d’une politique agricole néolibéraleest à l’origine d’une altération structurelle des conditions de production et de reproduction des exploitationspaysannes et familiales : évolution défavorable des prix, exclusion du système de financement, morcellementde la propriété et accès de plus en plus restreint à la terre, inefficacité et inadéquation des services d’appui.La conséquence ultime étant une tendance à la détérioration des revenus réels des exploitants etl’accentuation de la différenciation socio-économique dont l’hétérogénéité des conditions réelles deproduction est à la base.Avec la signature des accords de l’OMC et la conclusion de l’accord de libre échange avec l’UE, ilest difficile, voire même impossible pour une bonne majorité des exploitations paysannes et familiales de semaintenir, d’autant plus que les mécanismes qui ont permit jusque là leur maintien ont atteint leurs limites.Les nouvelles orientations n’ont fait qu’accroître les disparités socio-économiques dans le monde rural. Lespetits paysans sont de plus en plus marginalisés et condamnés à l’exode sans toutefois que des emplois nepuissent leur être assurés. Beaucoup plus qu’une prolétarisation des petits paysans, c’est la ruine desrégions rurales qui est à l’oeuvre. La pauvreté, le chômage, le sous emploi et la dépendance alimentaire enseront les principales conséquences

Macedonian Abstract: Основна цел на овој труд е преку анализа на меѓународната трговија со земјоделски производи да покаже дека либерализацијата на трговијата во земјоделството може да доведе до намалување на сиромаштијата и гладот и зголемување на благосостојбата во светот.Трудот е поделен на три глобални целини. Во првата е даден историски осврт на меѓународната трговија со земјоделски производи со анализа на двете доминантни трговски концепции: протекционизмот и либерализмот. Вториот дел ги обработува напорите на меѓународната заедница во втората половина од 20-тиот век даовозможи прифатливи рамки за ослободување на трговијата со храна. Третиот дел е фокусиран на создавањето на третиот столб на Бретонвудскиот систем - Светската трговска организација и нејзиното влијание врз целосната либерализација на светската трговија со земјоделски производи.Во трудот се користени методите на анализа на статистички податоци, историска анализа, компаративна анализа и дедукција.English Abstract: The main goal of this paper is to show that trade liberalization in agriculture can lead to reduction in poverty and hunger and can increase world’s welfare.The paper is divided into three general units. The first chapter is a historical overview of international trade in agriculture followed by analyzing two major trade concepts: protectionism and liberalism. The second chapter emphasises the efforts of international community to create an acceptable framework for agriculture trade liberalization in the second half of the 20th century. The third part is focused on the third pillar of the Bretton Woods system - World Trade Organization and its impact on the complete liberalization of international trade of agriculture products.The methods of statistical data analysis, historical analysis, comparative analysis and deduction are widely used in this paper.

Because of concern that tariff reductions in Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries will translate into worsening export performance for the least developed countries, the erosion of trade preferences may become a stumbling block for multilateral trade liberalization. An econometric analysis of actual preference use shows that preferences are underused because of administrative burdens-estimated to be equivalent to an average of four percent of the value of goods traded. To quantify the maximum scope for preference erosion, the compliance cost estimates are used in a model-based assessment of the impact of full elimination of OECD tariffs. Taking into account administrative costs eliminates erosion costs in the aggregate and greatly reduces the losses for countries most affected by preference erosion.

The GATT Rounds show that trade liberalization is essentially a cooperative non-stationary dynamic process. Therefore, the impact of Regionalism on trade liberalization possibly changes over time. I adapt the trade liberalization model of Devereux (1997) to examine how this impact varies. Common markets lead to a one-time shock in immediate tariffs, as well as to a change in their rate of decline. I find that common markets that happen late in the trade liberalization process are more likely to lead to a decline in immediate tariffs. Common markets also increase the rate of decline of tariffs after their formation. JEL Classification: F03, F15 Marches communs et liberalisation du commerce. Les diverses rondes de negociation du GATT ont montre que la liberalisation du commerce est essentiellement un processus dynamique non-stationnaire de cooperation. Donc l’impact du regionalisme sur la liberalisation du commerce peut changer dans le temps. L’auteur utilise le modele de liberalisation du commerce de Devereux (1997) pour analyser comment cet impact varie. Les marches communs declenchent un choc immediat dans les droits de douanes en place ainsi qu’un changement dans leur taux de declin. Il semble que les marches communs qui se materialisent tard dans le processus de liberalisation du commerce sont davantage susceptibles d’entrainer un declin immediat dans les droits de douane. Les marches communs accroissent aussi le taux de reduction dans les droits de douane apres leur formation.

We argue that, in the presence of asymmetric countries, a trade agreement that conforms to GATT’s reciprocity rule allows the (stronger) less trade dependent country to improve its welfare relative to both the free trade and the trade war. Conversely, the (weaker) more trade dependent country cannot reach the free trade welfare level under reciprocity, although its welfare improves relative to the trade war. Reciprocity is so unfavorable to the weaker country that it may be worse off under reciprocity than under the Nash bargaining solution, a ‘power-based’ approach to trade negotiations that reflects power asymmetries among trading partners. Our results question Bagwell and Staiger (1999, 2000)’s view of reciprocity as a rule that “serves to mitigate the influence of power asymmetries on negotiated outcomes”.

This paper furnishes robust evidence that the GATT/WTO has had a powerful and positive impact on trade. The impact has, however, been uneven. GATT/WTO membership for industrial countries has been associated with a large increase in imports estimated at about 40 percent of world trade. The same has not been true for developing country members, although those that joined after the Uruguay Round have benefited from increased imports. Similarly, there have been asymmetric effects among sectors, with WTO membership associated with substantially greater imports in sectors where barriers are low. These results are consistent with the history and design of the institution, which presided over significant trade liberalization by the industrial countries except in sectors such as food and clothing; largely exempted developing countries from the obligations to liberalize under the principle of special and differential treatment; but attempted to redress the latter by imposing greater obligations on developing country members that joined after the Uruguay Round.

Trading blocks can help or hinder the liberalization of world trade. A determining factor is whether trade within the block is organized around traditional comparative advantages, or around economies of scale. Regional free trade agreements such as NAFTA can be a substitutes for global free trade when they are based on traditional comparative advantages; then each regional market develops market power and incentives to impose tariffs on the rest of the world. Alternatively, regional trade agreements can be complementary to global free trade. This occurs when the blocks are organized around the exploitation of economies of scale and based on knowledge-intensive sectors. I establish that external economies of scale produce incentives for expanded trade; they can defeat the standard arguments for "optimal tariffs" and mitigate another negative feature of trading blocks: their tendency to divert trade from efficient to inefficient sources. The emergence of regional blocks organized around economies of scale can therefore lead to increasingly open international markets. I discuss policy implications for the EU and for free trade in the Americas.

Como o notou A. Emmanuel é, sem dúvida, notável a carreira da lei dos custos comparativos e do ideal livre-cambista lhe está associado. Partindo do debate tradicional livre-câmbio/proteccionismo começaremos por colocar em evidência os elementos clássicos do debate, analisando a evolução que a teoria da protecção teve com os desenvolvimentos da economia política do proteccionismo e das teorias comerciais estratégicas. De seguida poremos em destaque a oposição entre as predições da teoria e a prática dos Estados Nação ao nível das relações económicas internacionais. Finalmente procuraremos revisitar o debate tradicional livre-câmbio/ proteccionismo no quadro do pós Uruguay Round e da constituição da OMC ( neo-proteccionismo e obstáculos não tarifários, regionalismos e fragmentação potencial do espaço comercial internacional). As A. Emmanuel said the “career” of the law of comparative costs and of the associated free trade ideal is quite remarkable. Beginning with the traditional debate free trade versus protectionism, we start with the classical foundations of these debate. Then we analyze the evolution of the economic thought with relation to the political economy of protection and the strategic commercial theories. Secondly, we stress the opposition between the theory and the practice of the Nation States at the level of the international economic relations. Lastly, we revisit the former debate in the context of the post Uruguay Round and of the beginning of the WTO implementation (new-protectionism and non-tariff barriers, regionalism and commercial fragmentation of the international commercial space.) info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion

Regional free trade zones have been unexpectedly successful in the last decade. Since 1980 the European Community enlarged significantly its membership and its scope. It now includes southern European countries, and market-integrating features allowing goods, people, services and capital to flow freely around an area accounting for about one fourth of world economic output. Based on economies of scale - we find a condition that determine whether trading blocks Such as NAFTA and the EU are complementary with and encourage global free trade - when this condition fails, instead, trading blocks undermine free trade. It is the purpose of this paper to re-examine the positive and negative aspects of trading blocs as they relate to gains from free trade. The paper is primarily a discussion of conceptual issues, although it is based on facts and on particular cases which are of interest to the trade liberalization in the Americas. We take a somewhat different approach to a familiar issue. Rather than asking the standard question of whether regional blocs help or hinder global free trade, we ask a more detailed question: what type of customs union is likely to lead to a trade war between the blocs, and what type of customs union is, instead, likely to lead to expanded global trade. In practical terms: what type of trade policies within the blocs will provide economic incentives for expanding free trade. We shall compare the impact on the world economy of free trade blocs which are organized around two alternative principles: one is traditional comparative advantages, the other is economies of scale. The aim is to determine how the patterns of trade inside the blocs determine the trade relations among the blocs.

The authors argue that further moves to liberalize trade and to implement existing GATT rules and principles may have a greater impact on global competition than would the pursuit of harmonization of competition policy. They also suggest that current GATT rules and case law provide scope for disputes to be brought before the GATT that relate to both the application and the nonapplication of existing domestic competition laws of GATT contracting parties. This leads to de facto discrimination between domestic and foreign products. Little use has been made of the GATT in this connection. Perhaps existing indirect avenues for raising competition-related disputes in the GATT should be pursued more actively. This would help identify what specific government policies might be the subject of multilateral negotiations and explicitly incorporated into the GATT framework.

Regional free trade zones have been unexpectedly successful in the last decade. Since 1980 the European Community enlarged significantly its membership and its scope. It now includes southern European countries, and market-integrating features allowing goods, people, services and capital to flow freely around an area accounting for about one fourth of world economic output. Based on economies of scale - we find a condition that determine whether trading blocks Such as NAFTA and the EU are complementary with and encourage global free trade - when this condition fails, instead, trading blocks undermine free trade. It is the purpose of this paper to re-examine the positive and negative aspects of trading blocs as they relate to gains from free trade. The paper is primarily a discussion of conceptual issues, although it is based on facts and on particular cases which are of interest to the trade liberalization in the Americas. We take a somewhat different approach to a familiar issue. Rather than asking the standard question of whether regional blocs help or hinder global free trade, we ask a more detailed question: what type of customs union is likely to lead to a trade war between the blocs, and what type of customs union is, instead, likely to lead to expanded global trade. In practical terms: what type of trade policies within the blocs will provide economic incentives for expanding free trade. We shall compare the impact on the world economy of free trade blocs which are organized around two alternative principles: one is traditional comparative advantages, the other is economies of scale. The aim is to determine how the patterns of trade inside the blocs determine the trade relations among the blocs.

The “Trade Policy Review Mechanism” passed within the framework of the Uruguay Round is intended to increase the transparency of national trade policies and to improve adherence to the rules of GATT. The following article offers a first evaluation of the new instrument.

Floating exchange rates affect two basic principles of GATT, namely: stability of trade policy conditions and reciprocity of trade concessions. What is the relevance of the changes to foreign trade? What possibilities for surmounting the new problems exist in the realm of external economic relations?

In the fifties and sixties GATT was a motive power for worldwide trade liberalization which caused exports and imports to increase constantly at a higher rate than the production of goods. If this positive trend is to last, the course must be laid now for progressive removal of the trade barriers.