bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Interest Group Influence on WTO Dispute Behaviour: A Test of State Commitment
Authors: Fattore Christina 
Published: April 2022

This study examines the influence of interest groups on a state's willingness to pursue their most favourable decision during a WTO dispute. States are committed to their WTO agreements, but they also have to act as a watchdog for their domestic industries in states that may not hold WTO agreements in high esteem. Interest group influence on the state has been examined through case studies, but never at the systemic level. I hypothesize that states being pressured by many interest groups are more likely to pursue a dispute into the higher levels of dispute resolution. I test this using data from the WTO as well as interests groups from around the world. I find that complainant states are more likely to be pressured by their interest groups to pursue a favourable outcome rather than settle or accept an earlier decision. I will go anywhere in the world to open new markets for American products. And I will not stand by when our competitors don't play by the rules. We've brought trade cases against China at nearly twice the rate as the last administration, and it's made a difference…. It's not fair when foreign manufacturers have a leg up on ours only because they're heavily subsidized. - Barack Obama, January 24, 2012
GIs Beyond TTIP: Death or Victory for the Living Cultural and Gastronomic Heritage?
Authors: Inama Stefano 
Published: April 2022

In 1995 the author was advising South African government officials during their Free trade Area negotiations with the EU when the issue of the use of ‘Port’, ‘Sherry’ and ‘Grappa’ by some South African wine and spirits producers came into the forefront of the negotiating agenda. A South African negotiator asked the author why the Europeans were obsessed with such names, after all, he said, ‘whenever I go to Pizza Hut and I order pizza I always think of pizza as made in Italy’. I replied that this was exactly what Europeans were afraid of. There is a deep ‘cultural’ and legal divide between the EU and the US on the issue of geographical indications, its cultural underpinnings and trade interests. This article examines how this debate is becoming more complex and deep rooted with developing country markets, some increasingly using Geographical Indications (GIs) to promote their own products, being the object of the contest. By not providing adequate technical assistance to support the growth of GIs in developing countries and Least developed countries he EU fails to live up to its commitment to preserve the ‘Living cultural and gastronomic heritage’ that is not limited to EU products and trade interests .The ultimate answer lies on our everyday ability as consumers to make our choice based on unequivocal information about the nature and the origin of the products we buy in groceries stores.
The Crisis in WTO Dispute Settlement: Fixing Birth Defects to Restore Balance
Authors: Mcdougall Robert 
Published: April 2022

The impasse in the World Trade Organization over the appointment of new members of the Appellate Body is just one symptom of crisis in cooperation on trade. Driven by scepticism about multilateralism and binding dispute settlement, and a growing rivalry with China, the current US administration has elevated longstanding concerns about WTO dispute settlement to new heights. The collective inability of WTO members to exercise their authority to interpret the meaning of WTO commitments has meant that the Appellate Body is not subject to any checks and balances. As other WTO members blocked US efforts to negotiate more member control led nowhere, it turned to unpopular unilateral mechanisms, culminating in the current block on new appointments. Restoring the dispute settlement system and enhancing its legitimacy will now require some changes. This might include improving mechanisms for political oversight, diverting sensitive issues from adjudication, narrowing the scope of adjudication, improving institutional support and providing members more say over certain procedures. Preserving compulsory, binding and impartial dispute settlement in the WTO will require an accommodation of different perspectives on how that system should function. Achieving this, in whatever form, will contribute to maintaining and even strengthening multilateral cooperation on trade.
Trade Law and the Capability Approach
Authors: Manley Rhys 
Published: April 2022

International trade agreements have brought undoubted benefits to the world economy and society. But they have also wrought substantial harm, both in developed and developing countries. Even if the aggregate benefits outweigh the harms, those harms tend to be very visible. They rightly attract condemnation from across the political spectrum, leading to increasing scepticism of free trade. There is also a growing sense that certain trade agreements are being used as a vehicle for the pursuit of special interests – further eroding the case for free trade in the public’s mind.
These issues cannot be ignored. Left unchecked, popular pressure may lead to a partial or complete collapse of the liberal trading order – harming both developed and developing countries in the process.
A new approach is needed. One that leads to an international trading order firmly grounded in the concept of justice.
Is EU GSP+ Fostering Good Governance? Results from a New GSP+ Compliance Index
Authors: Marx Axel , Lebzelter Thomas 
Published: April 2022

The European Union’s Generalized Scheme of Preferences Plus (GSP+) regulation grants beneficiary countries non-reciprocal preferential market access on the condition of ratification and implementation of twenty-seven international conventions which cover a range of policy issues including human rights, labour rights, environmental protection and good governance. Doubts have been raised on the scheme’s efficacy. To analyse whether the scheme can foster the implementation of these conventions, this article attempts to quantify compliance with these conventions by creating a GSP+ Compliance Index. The article presents the results of two variations of the index: a ‘comprehensive index’ which aims to cover as many conventions as possible and a more ‘selective index’ with higher validity. The comprehensive scenario provides scores for all current GSP+ beneficiary countries (Armenia, Bolivia, Cape Verde, Georgia, Kyrgyzstan, Mongolia, Pakistan, Paraguay, Philippines, Sri Lanka). The selective scenario provides information on all current beneficiary countries, except for Cape Verde and Kyrgyzstan. Based on the newly created index, we find arguments for an effective GSP+ conditionality, especially after the reform of the GSP regulation, and the inclusion of good governance in trade policy.
EU Trade Policy, Generalized Scheme of Preferences, Human Rights, Environmental Protection, Good Governance, Compliance and Conditionality
Developing Countries and Domestic Support Measures in Agriculture: Walking a Tightrope
Authors: Janardhan Sparsha , Nedumpara James J. 
Published: April 2022

Supporting the domestic agriculture sector is a vital concern for most developing countries. Of late, developing countries’ agricultural subsidies are increasingly falling under scrutiny at various WTO fora, including the Dispute Settlement Body and the Committee on Agriculture. The recent WTO panel ruling in China – Agricultural Producers and the multiple challenges against India’s support measures on sugar and cane sugar are illustrations of this trend. It is a potential tinderbox and is bound to push the WTO dispute settlement system to another political crisis if these measures are seriously pursued. The fault lines of the Agreement on Agriculture (AoA) are glaringly visible and the dubious economic basis for agriculture subsidy disciplines are likely to be vigorously contested. Maintaining essential agriculture support programme is a matter of life and death for several developing countries. In that context, the article is an attempt to formulate a few suggestions which can be helpful for the developing countries to design their agriculture policies in a manner that is consistent with the WTO legal framework and, in particular, the AoA. The article provides some practical suggestions for designing programmes which can take advantage of the limited flexibilities provided under the AoA for the calculation of Aggregate Measurement of Support and Market Price Support. On the whole, a carefully crafted agriculture subsidy policy can help the WTO Members to maintain essential public stockholding or other income or price support programmes.
Market Price Support, Developing countries, Domestic Support, Policy Space, Agricultural Subsidy, Quantity of eligible production, Korea – Beef, China – Agricultural Producers, Amber Box support, Public Stockholding for Food Security Purposes
A Crisis or an Opportunity? The Trade War Between the US and China in the Solar PV Sector
Authors: Meng Fang Mandy 
Published: April 2022

Since early 2018, the US–China ‘trade war’ has increased tariffs on a wide range of Chinese products, including solar panels. The tension between the US and China in solar sector, if left unchecked, will not only harm the bilateral relationship between the two trade powers but also impede climate change mitigation as higher costs will slow down the deployment of solar products.
The article begins by tracing the rapid development of the solar energy sector in China, before reviewing US trade measures to counteract the increased imports and protect its domestic industry. The article then proceeds to examine the WTO rules, finding that China is likely to prevail in the dispute on claims made under the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade and the Agreement on Safeguards. However, while WTO litigation may be a necessary step it is not sufficient. China must also take the opportunity to solve deeply-rooted problems in its solar industry, namely solar overcapacity and heavy reliance on export markets in a limited number of countries that render Chinese solar manufacturing susceptible to trade restrictions imposed by other countries. Addressing these issues will not only remove a major irritant to the US and other trading partners but would also solidify the position of the industry within the country.
The article recommends two options for China: first, explore domestic market potential for solar energy so as to absorb manufacturing capacity. The key here lies in progressively scaling up domestic solar consumption, which is essential in promoting China’s solar development in a healthy and sustainable manner. Second, strengthen ties with countries along the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) in solar trade and investment. Exporting Chinese solar technologies and building solar power infrastructure in BRI countries not only alleviates China’s over-dependence on a limited number of advanced economies’ markets but also contributes to ‘greening’ the BRI and global climate change mitigation.
Reality Check: The lack of consensus on new trade rules to govern the digital economy
Authors: Lacey Simon 
Published: April 2022

This article makes three arguments. First, that beyond a very narrow set of largely uncontroversial disciplines on domestic legislative reforms to facilitate or promote e-commerce and cooperate in this area, it has proven and will likely continue to prove extremely difficult to establish anything but the most superficial consensus with respect to meaningful new trade rules to govern the digital economy. Second, it argues that with respect to a second set of rules that seek to establish genuine and enforceable constraints to governments’ ability to effect harmful regulatory interventions in the digital economy, the textual outcomes that have emerged so far in trade agreements such as the CPTPP are so riddled with broadly formulated exceptions and carve-outs, that there is little prospect for business to obtain the predictability and certainty that these new rules should ideally promise. Finally, this article argues that a set of exogenous factors has conspired to make the need to establish consensus on new trade rules to govern the digital economy more urgent but also infinitely more difficult, including but not limited to a backlash against technology the rise in income inequality in advanced industrialized countries, a resurgence in protectionism, and an America no longer willing to show constructive leadership that threatens to permanently cripple the rules based multilateral trading system.
Digital trade, e-commerce, consensus, WTO, CPTPP, protectionism, backlash, big-tech, US-China, trade war
Official Export Credit Support: Competition and Compliance Issues
Authors: Dawar Kamala 
Published: April 2022

Aggressive competition in the official export credit support market has resulted in an increase in activity that lies outside of the main instruments regulating competition and sustainable development in export finance terms – the OECD Arrangement on Officially Supported Export Credits, (OECD Arrangement on Official Export Credits. TAD/PG(2019)1) and the OECD Common Approaches(OECD Recommendation of the Council on Common Approaches for Officially Supported Export Credits and Environmental and Social Due Diligence (The ‘Common Approaches’). TAD/ECG(2016)3). By default, the World Trade Organization’s Agreement on Subsidies and Countervailing Duties (SCM) is becoming the main legal deterrent, despite its weakness in not covering trade in services or the sustainable development dimensions of official export credit support. Yet the playing field is also unruly because of the apparent reluctance on the part of WTO Members to challenge these measures.
Export Credit Agencies (ECAs), the OECD Arrangement, the OECD Common Approaches, the WTO SCM, International Working Group on Export Credit Support (IWG)
The current economic slowdown in export growth, coupled with the rise of unruly export credit support programmes, presents a strategic dilemma for the Participants to the OECD Arrangement. They are faced with the difficult choice between taking a strong pro-competition position domestically, or by fighting fire with fire and developing their own non-Arrangement type export credit support programmes. The former option is the more preferable for economic efficiency considerations and long-term competitiveness, although it may result in a controversial reduced role for their ECAs.

There is a collective interest in preventing publicly-funded, yet opaque, subsidy wars in export credit terms and conditions, with negative economic, political, social and environmental repercussions. This calls for heightened cooperation among ECA governments within international bodies such as the WTO, OECD and the International Working Group (IWG) on Export Credit Support.
Export Credit Agencies (ECAs), the OECD Arrangement, the OECD Common Approaches, the WTO SCM, International Working Group on Export Credit Support (IWG)
Gendered Perspectives on Services Trade and Investment
Authors: Sauve Pierre 
Published: April 2022

The service economy, and services trade and investment, are potentially important sources of inclusive growth by supplying considerable employment opportunities for female workers in light of the skills and work attributes often at play in services work. Services can play an important role in closing gender gaps, alleviating poverty and addressing the many forms of workplace discrimination weighing more heavily on female workers, managers and business owners. Economies around the world at all development levels are experiencing patterns of structural transformation resulting in a sustained rise in the share of services in key economic aggregates – output, employment, trade and foreign direct investment (FDI). Cross-border trade and investment can accelerate the pace at which economies specialize in tertiary output, employment and cross-border exchange. And trade and investment policies designed to induce an orderly process of structural change can help promote greater inclusiveness and address gender gaps in employment and work conditions. But trade policy alone cannot address a range of factors holding back the employment and economic opportunities of women and often confining them to a narrow range of service sectors and occupational categories. Trade-induced increases in employment opportunities for women often may not necessarily lead to reduced inequalities, such as gender segregation in types of occupations and activities, gender gaps in terms of wages and working conditions, and gender-specific constraints in access to productive resources, infrastructure, and services. Policies aimed at affording women higher levels of social protection, lessened time burdens flowing from household responsibilities, better access to education, vocational training, finance and information networks as well as strengthened entrepreneurial skills all form important complements for sustained improvements in female empowerment in services and beyond, as do steps taken to combat gender discrimination in all its forms.
Trade in services, gender, structural change, female empowerment, international trade negotiations, World Trade Organization.
Domestic Sources of India’s Trade Policy Preferences in RCEP Negotiations
Authors: Singh Surendar , Singh Ram 
Published: April 2022

After negotiating for seven years, fifteen member countries of the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) agreement concluded text-based negotiations on 4 November 2019 at a summit held in Bangkok, conveying that participants will sign the agreement in 2020. However, India refused to join the RCEP agreement on the ground that its ‘outstanding and domestic concerns’ remained unresolved. This article examines key factors that shaped India’s decision not to participate in the RCEP. To examine these key factors, two-level game literatures are used to focus on domestic factors and interest groups explaining the role of actors that shaped India’s trade policy preferences regarding the RCEP. Specific cases from the steel and agricultural sector are used to examine powerful sector-specific interest groups in this article. Findings show that powerful and well-organized interest groups within the steel sector successfully pressurized the government to withdraw from the RCEP. In the agricultural sector, interest groups are fragmented, but because of their large number as an electoral group, farmers and workers provided power to influence the government to opt out from the RCEP.
RCEP negotiations, free trade agreements, India, WTO, sector-specific groups, domestic lobby, interest groups, and industry associations
The Trade: (Cyber)Security Dilemma and Its Impact on Global Cybersecurity Governance
Authors: Mishra Neha 
Published: April 2022

Governments are adopting various measures to address cybersecurity-related concerns. Some of these measures restrict cross-border flows of digital services/data, and thus inconsistent with obligations in trade agreements such as General Agreement on Trade in Services (‘GATS’). However, certain governments might argue that such measures are justified under the GATS security exception (Art. XIVbis) as they protect national security. This article investigates whether GATS Art. XIVbis is relevant in justifying cybersecurity measures and its potential impact on cybersecurity governance. It argues that GATS Art. XIVbis has limited relevance, and is potentially problematic, when used in justifying majority of cybersecurity measures. First, a large majority of cybersecurity measures do not fall within the limited set of exceptional circumstances listed in GATS Art. XIVbis. Further, in applying this exception to cybersecurity measures, WTO Panels will be unfairly forced to balance trade and security interests in an environment of political, technological and policy uncertainty. Given these practical limitations and the normative boundaries of GATS Art. XIVbis, countries must avoid casually relying upon security exceptions as a basis for adopting/implementing unilateral measures on cybersecurity, but rather engage in meaningful cyber-diplomacy and regulatory cooperation mechanisms to resolve their differences on cybersecurity governance.
cybersecurity, GATS, WTO law, security exception, digital trade, internet governance,national security, cyberspace
BRI 2.0: Cosmetic Repairs or a Change of Course?
Authors: Wang Zhiqiong June , Chen Jianfu 
Published: April 2022

At the Second Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation in April 2019, China began to directly address some of the criticisms of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) practices, and started to emphasize the needs of local communities, economic and environmental sustainability, and mutual understanding among all parties and people involved in BRI projects. China also began to stress the importance of international law principles and common practices, and a multilateral approach to the implementation of BRI. Together with its pledge, made in September 2018, to waive debts for selected least developed African countries, there is now talk of a ‘BRI 2.0’. However, is this BRI 2.0 fundamentally different from its original version?
This article starts with a brief examination of the notion of BRI and its development in the last six years. It then reviews the various criticisms levelled against the BRI and its practices. This is followed by an analysis of recent responses from China to various concerns and misgivings. In its analysis, this article examines the BRI in a geopolitical context and argues that much more fundamental changes are needed for the ‘BRI 2.0’ to gain genuine support from Western developed nations.
Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), China, Investment, Geopolitics, Sustainability, Global Governance
Testing for Consistency: Certain Digital Tax Measures and WTO Non-Discrimination
Authors: Ogbu Okanga Okanga 
Published: April 2022

Few issues have challenged tax policymakers and commentators as much as digital taxation has in recent years. Ongoing efforts to reconstruct the rules of international tax to ‘properly’ govern the taxation of the global digital economy have evoked some important tax and trade related considerations. As regards the latter, unilateral attempts by various states – partly spurred on by a lack of multilateral consensus – to tax nonresident digitalized businesses threaten to disrupt international trade relations, with threats of trade war exchanged between some World Trade Organization (WTO) Member States over the propriety of the proposed tax measures. As the conversation on the underlying tax issues progresses, this article examines the consistency of some features of the various unilateral digital tax measures with the fundamental WTO principle of non-discrimination, as contained in the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS). Using the French Digital Service Tax (French DST) as a focal point, the article argues that there is a case to be made that some common features of the unilateral digital tax measures violate either the most favoured nation or national treatment rules of WTO non-discrimination.
International Tax, International Trade, Digitalization, E-Commerce, WTO, Non-discrimination, Most Favoured Nation, National Treatment