The WTO adopted measures on Tuesday to work through the backlog of PTAs awaiting evaluation:

Officials said it opens the way for clearing a huge backlog of some 200 regional trade agreements, or RTAs, many of which have been awaiting the WTO green light for a decade or more, and for fast action in accepting new ones.

“This decision will help break the current logjam in the WTO on regional trade agreements,” Mr Lamy said in a statement…

“Hopefully, this decision is a good omen for much-needed progress in other areas of the talks, such as agriculture and industrial goods trade, where agreement is urgently needed,” added Mr Lamy, currently travelling world capitals in search of a breakthrough on the Round.

This measure has little connection to those other areas and I see no reason for it to spur progress at the negotiating table.

The decision, reached in committee on Monday, provides for WTO economists to present an analysis of each agreement, with trade statistics, which will make it easier for smaller countries to determine how an RTA might affect their trade.

Until now, members have simply been presented with the often complex texts of such agreements.

Only one agreement – between the Czech Republic and Slovakia after the break-up of their former unified state in the early 1990s – has been approved in the last decade.

I raised this topic two months ago, and Ben Muse’s answer to my query on GATT Article XXIV compliance appears to have been correct.

Will the WTO acquiese to the proliferation of PTAs and greenlight all of them? Or will it try to strike some down?

I’m developing an interest in the WTO dispute settlement mechanism. Here’s a data set that might help some in their research:

The dataset covers all 311 WTO disputes initiated through the official filing of a Request for Consultations at the WTO, from 1 January 1995 until July 31, 2004, and for these disputes it includes events occurring until February 28, 2005. For these disputes, the dataset covers exhaustively all stages of dispute settlement proceedings, from the moment when consultations are being requested to the eventual implementation of the rulings.

Is anyone aware of a resource that details which CUs and FTAs have been found to be compliant with Article XXIV of the GATT? The best I have thus far is footnote seven in “Agriculture, GATT, and Regional Trade Agreements” by Sharon Sheffield:

As of January 1995, only 6 RTA’s [sic] have been found to be compliant with Article XXIV by unanimous agreement of the working party. Of these 6, only 2 are presumed to still be in operation (Czech-Slovak CU and the Caribbean Community and
Common Market).

Commenting on my previous post, Schiller and Ivan defended the WTO’s recent GMO decision. They say that the WTO was right to condemn the EU for using (bunk) science as an excuse for agricultural protectionism.

I’m very sympathetic to the arguments that the GMOs are reliable and safe. My doubts about the ruling are not a result of an aversion to biotechnology. Rather, I fear that the WTO’s approach to handling environmental regulatory issues will imperil its ability to promote trade liberalization. The intersection of regulatory policy and protectionism will prove much more difficult to handle than the simple collective lowering of trade barriers as accomplished under the GATT. Moreover, the WTO will face a growing number of disputes over non-tariff barriers, especially as tariff walls decline.

The old shrimp & turtle dispute was a case similar to the GMO conflict, but the WTO ruled differently in that instance. It approved import prohibitions targeting a production method (use of shrimp nets without turtle escapes) deemed environmentally unfriendly. If the WTO recognizes trade sanctions and protectionism as legitimate means for promoting and defending environmental interests, then the dispute resolution panel will inevitably become a judge of scientific matters, rather than of compliance with WTO agreements.

If harmonizing trade barriers requires the harmonization of regulatory schemes, then the WTO will confront disputes regarding a plethora of non-trade issues. While I doubt that any state will soon challenge export or import bans regarding nuclear technology, one can imagine that the WTO may have to tackle issues like bans on the transfer of encryption technology. The WTO has already managed to entangle itself in the matter of intellectual property (pdf), a move which has been criticized by economists ranging from Bhagwati to Stiglitz. While most countries are interested in lowering trade barriers, many are much less comfortable with signing onto a global regulatory agency with far greater implications for domestic policy space.

Whether it’s feasible for the WTO to remain focused upon trade liberalization without experiencing mission creep into regulatory issues remains an open question. I don’t see a simple remedy for the problem of protectionism masquerading as environmental, labor or health policy.

I agree with Dan Drezner that the WTO ruling on genetically modified foods will hurt the organization. The Europeans strongly feel that the WTO is stepping outside its jurisdiction by condemning EU policy on a non-trade issue, since they consider the import prohibition to be a health and safety matter. They’ll choose to suffer US sanctions rather than allow GMF imports.

Thus, this case was lose-lose for the WTO from the beginning. A ruling against the US would have condemned the <a href=”significant potential benefits of biotechnology, while the ruling against the EU will only undermine the trade body’s credibility.

In a previous post, I noted that Joseph Stiglitz misinterpreted the WTO’s turtle-shrimp decision. He had written:

The WTO puts trade over all else. Those who seek to prohibit the use of nets that harvest shrimp but also catch and endanger turtles are told by the WTO that such regulation would be an unwarranted intrusion on free trade. They discover that trade considerations trump all others, including the environment! [Globalization and Its Discontents, p.216]

In his latest text, Dr. Stiglitz corrects his interpretation:

In its adjudication, the WTO’s Appellate Body made clear that the WTO gives countries the right to take trade action to protect the environment, in particular relating to human health, endangered species, and exhaustible resources… The US lost the case, not because it sought to protect the environment but because it discriminated between WTO members. (The United States was discriminating by giving Asian countries only four months to comply with its law, but allowing Caribbean Basin nations three years.) But the significance of the Shrimp-Turtle rulings is that they endorse the use of trade policy to enforce environmental standards. [Fair Trade For All, p.136-7]

Ukraine cannot join the World Trade Organization (WTO) in 2005, the country’s acting economic minister said Tuesday. Sergei Terekhin said, “We have pessimistic forecasts regarding Ukraine’s accession to the WTO this year.” [Novosti]

In a tough warning to anti-globalization protesters, Secretary for Security Ambrose Lee vowed to bar known troublemakers from entering Hong Kong during the World Trade Organization’s meeting in December, sparking fears that authorities are compiling a blacklist of WTO opponents. [The Standard]

Peter Gallagher writes that the WTO is structurally sound, arguing that the organization is being undermined by the fact that its two largest members, the US and EU, don’t even pretend to respect its rulings. He’s got some good examples to support that claim.

Two stories on WTO-induced liberalization:

Vietnam: “Accession to the World Trade Organization would throw up jobs in hi-tech fields in Vietnam but also present challenges, a top labor expert said.”

Malaysia: “Come 2008, Malaysia has to bear the full brunt of the liberalisation rules under the World Trade Organisation (WTO) for ‘non agricultural access’ and this covers products like automobiles. Known as the ‘big bang liberalisation’, the picture is rather grim ahead unless Malaysian national car companies become more competitive.”

Posting an answer to a question you posed only four hours earlier is a sure sign of unfamiliarity with the literature in that area. Luckily, Ben Muse has pointed me to Andrew K. Rose’s web page, which contains a plethora of links to his papers and various responses on the topic of the GATT/WTO’s effectiveness in liberalizing trade. I’m going to bury my nose in these papers for a day or two.