Economic research and trade policy analysis
How do we prepare for the technology-induced reshaping of trade?
This section examines how international trade cooperation can help governments all over the world harness digital technologies and seize the new trading opportunities they will create for firms both large and small. Section D.1 summarizes the main opportunities and challenges that arise with the expansion of digital trade. Section D.2 provides examples of the policies that governments put in place to exploit these opportunities and to address these challenges. Section D.3 then considers whether and how international cooperation can help governments exploit the gains from digital trade, cope with the challenges and at the same time achieve their public policy objectives, now and in the future.
Introduction
Provisional application of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT 1947) began 70 years ago, in 1948, and the same year the first GATT dispute was initiated. In total, 316 disputes were brought under the GATT 1947 and related agreements in its almost 50 years of provisional application.
Introducción
En todo el mundo, los Gobiernos intervienen de manera activa y abierta en las economías con el fin de impulsar la innovación, generar nuevas tecnologías y fomentar las industrias de vanguardia. Esas intervenciones pueden tener repercusiones positivas o negativas, especialmente en la economía mundial hiperconectada de hoy en día. Por una parte, pueden ampliar los conocimientos, aumentar la productividad y difundir las herramientas esenciales de crecimiento y desarrollo mundiales. Pero, por otra parte, también pueden distorsionar el comercio, desviar las inversiones y beneficiar a una economía en detrimento de otra. La cooperación y las normas internacionales son más necesarias que nunca para asegurar que el nuevo interés de los Gobiernos por las políticas en materia de innovación y tecnología maximice los efectos indirectos positivos y minimice los negativos, y para asegurar también que la carrera por el liderazgo tecnológico no se transforme en una lucha por el dominio tecnológico. El Informe sobre el comercio mundial 2020 analiza el papel de las políticas en materia de innovación y tecnología en una economía mundial cada día más digitalizada, y explica la función de la OMC en ese contexto cambiante.
Remerciements
Le Rapport sur le commerce mondial 2006 a été rédigé sous la supervision d’Alejandro Jara, Directeur général adjoint. Patrick Low, Directeur de la Division de la recherche économique et des statistiques, a dirigé l’équipe chargée de la rédaction. Les principaux auteurs du rapport sont Marc Bacchetta, Bijit Bora, K. Michael Finger, Marion Jansen, Alexander Keck, Clarisse Morgan, Roberta Piermartini et Robert Teh. Les statistiques commerciales ont été fournies par les statisticiens de la Division de la recherche économique et des statistiques, dont les travaux ont été coordonnés par Guy Karsenty, Julia de Verteuil, Andreas Maurer et Jürgen Richtering.
Agradecimientos
El Informe sobre el Comercio Mundial 2005 ha sido elaborado bajo la supervisión general del Director General Adjunto Dr. Kipkorir Aly Azad Rana. Patrick Low, Director de la División de Estudios Económicos y Estadística, dirigió el equipo encargado de redactar el Informe. Los autores principales del Informe son Marc Bachetta, Bijit Bora, K. Michael Finger, Marion Jansen, Alexander Keck, Roberta Piermartini y Robert Teh. Hildegunn Kyvik Nordas, ex funcionaria de la División de Estudios Económicos y Estadística, es coautora del ensayo sobre deslocalización. Mireille Cossy, de la División de Comercio de Servicios, también colaboró en ese ensayo. Robert Anderson, de la División de Propiedad Intelectual, y Pierre Latrille, de la División de Comercio de Servicios, son coautores del ensayo sobre servicios de transporte aéreo. Lee Ann Jackson, de la División de Agricultura y Productos Básicos, es coautora de las partes del Capítulo II relativas a las normas. Las estadísticas comerciales y la información arancelaria fueron facilitadas por el grupo de estadística de la División de Estudios Económicos y Estadística, bajo la coordinación de Guy Karsenty, Julia de Verteuil, Andreas Maurer y Jürgen Richtering.
Domestic framework for making and enforcing policies
A core objective of accession results is to establish a legal foundation for the conduct and management of trade policy based on the rule of law. Implementation of accession commitments hinges on the existence of an effective domestic framework for making and enforcing policies. Customarily, this is described in the third chapter of working party reports. Twenty-eight of the members that acceded pursuant to procedures in Article XII of the Marrakesh Agreement Establishing the World Trade Organization (WTO Agreement), have undertaken a total of fifty-five accession-specific commitments in this regard. The uniquely definable pattern that has emerged from WTO Accession Protocols confirms the uniform applicability of the WTO Agreement throughout and across the entirety of the customs territory of the new member, the exclusive authority of central governments to implement and enforce WTO rules, the strengthening of due process and the rule of law, and the precedence of ratified international treaties over domestic legislation, in many instances. These commitments are integral to the WTO Agreement and are enforceable under the WTO Dispute Settlement Understanding. Although normative and standard, they confirm the long-standing accession practice that a range of original members have not confirmed and from which several deviate. This chapter studies the specific accession-specific commitments in the domestic framework for making and enforcing policies. It also investigates the relationship between Accession Protocols and domestic legal systems and asks whether original members undertook similar obligations.
Mutual recognition of services regulation at the WTO
Mutual recognition is a useful tool for international liberalization in particular contexts. However, it has two types of limit, and to the extent that it may exceed these limits, it poses two important types of risk.
WTO Accession Negotiations from a Negotiator’s Perspective
This chapter considers political, commercial and legal aspects of accession negotiations and the compromises by all parties involved to make accession to the World Trade Organization (WTO) a reality. Using the negotiations on the accessions of the Russian Federation and Samoa as case studies, this chapter analyses how political constraints, economic interests and legal commitments affected the course of the negotiations. In the case of the Russian Federation, the focus was on certain investment programmes in the automotive industry that were deemed inconsistent with the Agreement on Trade-Related Investment Measures (TRIMs). Agreement on these measures required prolonged negotiations, including at ministerial levels, to find a satisfactory solution for all parties involved. In the case of Samoa, attention was focused on the appropriate level of flexibility to be granted to a least-developed country (LDC), as the expansion of LDC membership is a priority for the Organization, in accordance with the Guidelines on LDCs’ accessions. The chapter concludes that the experience of accession negotiations has helped to define domestic reform in acceding members, clarify the application of WTO provisions in practice, upgrade regional integration frameworks and counter negative political pressures. These lessons can be used in negotiations by other acceding economies and constitute important building blocks of the upper floors of the international trading system.
Export duty commitments: The treaty dialogue and the pattern of commitments
This chapter focuses, pursuant to Article XII accession-specific commitments, on the evolving disciplines on export duties, distinguished from the broader setting of export restrictions. From a rules angle, export duties were not subject to disciplines, in contrast to import duties that have, classically, been bound in schedules of concessions and commitments on goods since GATT 1947. Pursuant to Article XI:1 of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) 1994 (rules for ‘quantitative restrictions’), prohibitions or restrictions on imports and exports, such as bans, quotas and restrictive licences, are generally prohibited, except for duties, taxes or other charges. In economic operations, export duties with price discrimination effects between domestic and foreign producers have resulted in efficiency losses and anti-competitiveness, and have undermined economic welfare. In accession negotiations, the establishment of disciplines and improvement in economic welfare has framed the treaty dialogue. This dialogue has made evident a range of issues that are systemic and that have involved questions on international economic cooperation, revolving around the broader use of export restrictions and their overlap with export duties. This chapter reviews the substance of the treaty dialogue on export duties and identifies the extent and pattern of specific obligations on export duties in the Article XII Accession Protocols deposited thus far. The analysis shows that fifteen Article XII members have accepted accession-specific obligations on the application of export duties. These obligations range across ‘abiding’ by the provisions of the WTO Agreement; ‘binding and/or fixing’ applied export duty rates; and, ‘reducing’, ‘eliminating’ or ‘foreclosing’ on the use of such duties. Of precedential value is the modification of the classical 1947 architecture of the GATT Goods Schedule to create a Part V on Export Duties in the context of the WTO accession commitments of Russia in its Goods Schedule. This chapter argues that accession-specific commitments have deepened and extended original WTO rules governing export duties as an instrument of trade policy. The overall systemic effect has been positive, namely to constrain, reduce, eliminate and/or bind, hence contributing to clarity and predictability of the rules with pro-competitive effects, enhancement of market access opportunities and improvements in economic welfare. The chapter argues that WTO accession-specific obligations for export duties have set the multilateral standard for disciplines in this area. Nevertheless, it is worrying that even as the disciplines on export duties are being formulated and strengthened via Article XII members, the facts suggest the higher use of such export duties by original members over the period from 2003 to 2009.
Supply chains and SMEs
Small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) present an issue of significant political and economic interest as they create jobs and drive development in developing and advanced countries. However, there is a perception that SMEs face a conundrum in the new realities brought about by globalisation. While supply chains present a portal for SMEs into international markets, they also open up SME market niches to encroaching large-sized enterprises (LEs). The competitive capabilities imparted by supply chain management (SCM) literature is suggested here for SMEs to compete against LEs; a slingshot in the battle between David and Goliath. The literature, however, reveals a controversy over whether SCM, in reality, helps or hurts SMEs. Some of the reasoning points to the presence of an LE perspective bias, and SMEs sometimes consider SCM as a threat, not a solution. The recent literature is addressing this issue by taking up the SME perspective, but the question of an SCM for SMEs is still in a very early stage of development. More effort will be required to gather data and build theory for SMEs in both developed and developing markets.
Resumen
el Informe sobre el Comercio Mundial 2009 se centra principalmente en ciertas medidas de contingencia a que pueden recurrir los Miembros de la OMC en el ámbito de la importación y exportación de mercancías. El marco jurídico de estas medidas está mucho menos desarrollado en el caso del comercio de servicios, aunque este asunto también se analiza.