The trade and environment debate arose as result of pressure from environment groups in the industrialized economies to introduce environmental issues in the WTO. Along with the demand to include labor rights in the WTO and the insistence that NGOs have greater rights of participation in NGO processes, this marked a change in the pattern of deliberation in the WTO and its predecessor, the GATT ...

During September 10-14, 2003, WTO members met in Cancún for a mid-term review of the Doha Round of trade negotiations, launched in November 2001. Trade ministers entered the 5 WTO Ministerial divided on agricultural and non-agricultural negotiating modalities, on whether to launch negotiations on the so-called Singapore issues and their possible scope, on the approach to take towards strengthen...

This paper analyzes the main economic issues of intellectual property rights (IPRs) protection in the context of the World Trade Organization (WTO). A retrospective view on the establishment of the TRIPS (traderelated aspects of intellectual property rights) Agreement, a still controversial accomplishment of the Uruguay Round of trade liberalization, is provided. The paper reviews the economic ...

Participation in international trade potentially brings huge benefits to developing countries. However, the design and setup of the international trade regime, most importantly the rules and regulations stipulated in the agreements of the World Trade Organization (WTO), often make it difficult for developing countries to fully tap this potential. As will be argued in this paper using descriptiv...

The World Trade Organization ("WTO") has been heavily criticized since its inception for its potentially destructive influence on other policy domains, particularly environmental and labor policies. The public debate with respect to the WTO was structured, to a large extent, by this negative stance. "Linkage" emerged over the last decade as an alternative framework for thinking about the relati...

This workshop was jointly convened by the WHO and WTO Secretariats, hosted and financially supported by the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, co-financed by the Netherlands Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and organized and planned with the assistance of the Global Health Council. This report seeks to describe the work done at the workshop, summarizing the principal issues identified and point...

WTO Accession and Performance of Chinese Manufacturing Firms* China’s policy-makers argued that WTO accession and the accompanying trade liberalization would have a beneficial impact on the domestic economy. China’s import tariffs differed tremendously across industry in the earlier years, but converged to an almost uniform low level after WTO entry. We exploit sectoral variation in the extent ...

This article summarizes some of the results and findings emerging from an ongoing World Bank research and capacity-building project that focuses on the World Trade Organization (WTO) negotiating agenda from a developing country perspective. Recent research suggests that the potential gains from further multilateral liberalization of trade remain very large. The payoffs associated with attempts ...

The Pharmaceutical Industry witnessed a change after the formation of World Trade Organization (WTO) in 1995 when India, being a signatory member of WTO, adopted Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) Agreement. Indian pharmaceutical industry, being a highly fragmented one and dominated mostly by a large number of smaller enterprises, was also apprehensive when TRIPS was ...

The inherent tension between trade preferences and the Most-Favoured Nation (MFN) principle has been mainly examined in the context of regional free trade agreements and customs unions. Much less attention has been given to non-reciprocal special trade preferences given by developed countries to developing countries. WTO rules on these special preferences are less explicit than WTO rules govern...