the world trade organisation. structure and objectives of the lecture section one: uncover the...
TRANSCRIPT
Structure and Objectives of the Lecture
• Section One: Uncover the formal ideology of the WTO and examine the modern history of the world trade regime
• Section Two: Present some data about the organisation of WTO and outline its major areas of operation
• Section Three: WTO and commodity trade
Section Four: Trade-Related Investment Measures (TRIMs)
• Section Five: Trade-Related Intellectual Property Rights
Section Six/Conclusion: Attempt to place WTO in its global historical context
Section One:
The underlying ideology of WTO is little different from that of Adam Smith and François Quesnay
Comparative advantage and market based trade
Multilateralism is a superior method of achieving free trade than bilateralism which leads to fracture
• Idea (myth) of the great depression is important to this ideology
• Also empirical link between levels of trade and development.
• The WTO mum and dad was the GATT (General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade)
• The GATT was a agreement (a continuous series of talks) not a organisation
• GATT was created in 1947 US Congress Blocked plans to create a ‘proper’ international organisation to regulate trade
• The same ideology regulated the GATT as the WTO but it was more diplomatic and less legalistic, possessed fewer sanctions and was narrower scope
• In some way reflection of the Ruggie’s ‘embedded liberal comprise’
Section Two
• WTO created with little fanfare and debate in 1995 out of GATT Urgargy round
• 149 Members in February 2006 • Attempt to put Multilateral Trading System on a much
surer footing• Organisation of Networks. WTO is largely run by state
officials not its own secretariat (it only employs 500 people. The World Bank employs over 6000)
• The WTO does actually do anything (expect monitor) but it is instead a vehicle through which state’s do things
• Over 40 different committees and working groups (General Council)
• Perhaps its easier to understand the WTO as a number of forums
• Ministerial Meeting every two years (Seattle (1999), Doha(2001), Cancun (2003) Hong Kong (2005))
• Formally very democratic but realities are quite different……….
Section Three: Commodity Trade
• Agriculture is a ‘special’ area (US and EU pact)• Concessions to Underdeveloped World: Phase
out date of 2013 for agricultural export subsidies• Duty free/quota free access for least developed
but only on 97 per cent of tariff lines by US and Japan
• Cotton DF/QF and export subsidies immediately• Also abolition of Multi Fibre Arrangement
between 1995-2005
• At least cosmetically major moves towards liberalisation and creation of a pro-development agenda
• But are concessions real?
• Lift restrictions on items that you do not import from developing countries anyway
• Also Agriculture is a Red Herring…..
• Cairns Group: Argentina | Australia | Bolivia | Brazil | Canada | Chile | Colombia | Costa Rica | Guatemala | Indonesia | Malaysia | New Zealand | Pakistan |Paraguay | Philippines | South Africa | Thailand | Uruguay
Section Four: TRIMs
• What the WTO understands trade is very broad
• TRIMs investment/trade in services
• Area were rich states have a clear advantage
• Quite intrusive in that they impact on financial regulation and public service provision
• The issue of TRIPs has come up in relation to reform of the NHS reform
The WTO has said that only a monopoly provider in the public sector is excluded from coverage. A service is commercial when patients have a choice of hospitals—that is when hospitals are effectively in competition regardless of whether ownership is in public or private hands. According to this interpretation, the market-oriented reforms of the NHS Plan redefine the NHS as a commercial service subject to trade rules. At the very least, final determination of the status of the NHS will be dependent on a disputes settlements panel of the WTO (Price and Pollock, 2002).
Section Five: TRIPs
• Most controversial aspect of the entire trade regime
• Great deal in Media concerning AIDS drugs• Authored by major drugs and media firms in core
capitalist state’s• Intellectual property is different from physical
property • Difficult to establish creation (always drawing on
pool of common heritage) and it is non-exclusive.
• Patenting regimes represent a compromise between public and private goods
• Shift towards private goods in last few decades in key economies in terms of lengths and scope of patenting
• Patenting of Genetic Material • Herdergen, M. (2002) ‘Patents on parts of the human
body: salient issues under EC and WTO law’, Journal of World Intellectual Property, 5(2):145-55.
• Market capitalisation of US biotechnology firms increased from $45 billion in 1994 to $311 billion in 2005
• TRIPs seek to internationalise this protection
• Also biopiracy (Neam Tree )
• As capitalist fails recognize pre-capitalist forms of common property
• Common heritage of mankind….
• Primitive accumulation redux
• Also it is impossible to prove a link between innovation and property rights protection. Benefits of protection offset by costs of preventing diffusion
• Sampling and the Development of Hip-Hop
• Neo-liberals themselves are ambiguous on TRIPs, some see them as anti-competitive
• TRIPs contested not a completed project
Section Six/ Conclusion
• Creation of WTO and attendant agreements reflects both material developments in global political economy and itself represents a attempt to create new set of material conditions
• The conflicts WTO reflect laws of combined and uneven development
• In many respects WTO empowers state elites• Two important points of reference in pervious
literature