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This paper maps and examines the provisions on anti-dumping, countervailing duties and safeguards in seventy-four regional trade agreements (RTAs). The RTAs vary in size, degree of integration, geographic region and the level of economic development of their members. The key policy concern of the paper is that the elastic and selective nature of trade remedies may lead to more discrimination, with reduced trade remedy actions against RTA partners, but a greater frequency of trade remedy actions against non-members. The adoption of RTAspecific trade remedy rules increases this risk of discrimination, with trade remedies against RTA members being abolished outright or being subjected to greater discipline. The templates used for mapping the trade remedy provisions reflect this central concern. The results of the mappings suggest the need to be vigilant about increased discrimination arising from trade remedy rules in RTAs. A number of RTAs have succeeded in abolishing trade remedies. Probit and multinomial logit model estimations suggest that these RTAs are characterized by a higher share of intra-RTA trade and deeper forms of integration that go well beyond the dismantling of border measures. A fairly large number of RTAs have adopted RTA-specific rules that tighten discipline on the application of trade remedies on RTA members. In the case of anti-dumping for example, some provisions increase de minimis volume and dumping margin requirements and shorten the duration for applying anti-dumping duties relative to the WTO Anti-dumping Agreement. In similar fashion, many of the provisions on bilateral safeguards lead to tightened discipline or reduce the incentives to take safeguard actions. Safeguard measures can be imposed only during the transition period, have shorter duration periods and require compensation if put in place. Further, retaliation is allowed if there is no agreement on compensation. RTA provisions on global safeguards require that, under certain conditions, RTA partners be exempted from multilateral safeguard actions. This conflicts with multilateral rules which require that safeguard measures be applied to all sources of imports and highlights the problem of trade diversion. A small number of RTAs give a role to regional institutions to conduct anti-dumping and countervailing duty investigations and to review final determinations of national authorities. There is a theoretical presumption and some empirical evidence to suggest that this reduces the frequency of anti-dumping initiations and final determinations against RTA members. In the case of CVDs, we are unable to find major innovations in CVD rules and practice by past and present RTAs. A major reason for this may be the absence of commitments in the RTA on meaningful or significant curbs on subsidies or state aid.

A major challenge for the multilateral trading system is to secure the benefits of trade liberalization without infringing on the freedom of governments to pursue legitimate domestic objectives. The difficulty lies in distinguishing between two types of situations. In one, a non-protectionist government cannot prevent certain domestic policies from incidentally discriminating against foreign competitors. In the other, a protectionist government uses a legitimate objective as an excuse to design domestic policies which inhibit foreign competition. The challenge is to devise rules which are sensitive to the difference between these two situations, exonerating the former while preventing the latter. The approach suggested in this paper is to create a presumption in favour of the economically efficient policy measure, with departures inviting justification.

The WTO’s plurilateral Information Technology Agreement (ITA) reduced tariffs to zero on many IT products. This paper presents a comprehensive study of its trade impacts by incorporating recent insights from both the global value chain (GVC) and time in trade literatures. Inserting tariffs directly into the gravity equation breaks the ITAs impact down into four layers. Import demand elasticities are found to be non-linear: Tariff reduction (layer 1) has relatively small impacts, while complete tariff elimination (layer 2) has high impacts, especially for intermediate goods. Beyond that, ITA accession has positive non-tariff effects on both imports (layer 3) and exports (layer 4). These commitment effects suggest that higher trade policy certainty affects investment and sourcing decisions in favour of signatories: Their ITA exports performed better relative to other ICT and machinery exports, unlike non-members. But “passive signatories” – which joined mainly as a by-product of a larger policy objective – reaped the most benefits. Featuring a smaller ITA sector upon accession, their final good exports increased also in absolute terms due to downstream GVC integration. However, such impacts are strongly heterogeneous with respect to countries’ geographical remoteness, education levels, business environment and institutions. China stands out with especially strong post-accession export increases, also extending to intermediate goods.

Since the conclusion of the Uruguay Round in 1994 and the creation of the WTO in 1995, the functioning of the multilateral trading system has been the focus of a considerable number of articles, proposals and debates. With the exception of a few important initiatives on transparency and decisionmaking, most contributions on the functioning of the WTO have been made by external observers of the WTO. However, over the past two years, an increasing number of Members have showed interest in systemic and institutional issues. This interest has to a large extent been generated by a concern about the role of the multilateral trading system in the overall international economic environment, particularly in light of the current global financial crisis. At the same time, the WTO as an institution is under considerable pressure following more than a decade of efforts to conclude the Doha Round of trade negotiations. This paper explores the possibility of establishing a Working Party on the Functioning of the WTO as a separate, deliberative process in the WTO. It seeks to outline the advantages of creating an informal forum or space for discussion among WTO Members and argues that many WTO Members appear to be ready for a broad discussion of institutional and systemic challenges facing the multilateral trading system.

This paper reviews the different types of provisions explicitly addressing electronic commerce (e-commerce) in regional trade agreements (RTAs). The analysis covers the 275 RTAs currently in force and notified to the WTO as of May 2017.

Transition economies are going through a process of changing the role of the state, allowing a greater role for the private sector. This is consistent with the market-oriented approach of the WTO. Remaining state agencies and enterprises will need to adapt their ways of doing business, including in their approach to procurement of goods and services, for economic and legal reasons. There is some hesitation about privatization, as for foreign direct investment, and, where accepted, about the precise timing. Where privatization of basic service monopolies occurs, the role of the state shifts towards a regulatory function. In some private sector activities, a non-interventionist approach to competition may be justified by market considerations, while in others a pro-active policy may be necessary to ensure the benefits of economic liberalization.

This paper presents a discussion of the potential channels through which international trade affects the position of low skilled workers in the European Union. After an analysis of the European Union's trade flows showing the predominant role of intra-industry trade with other industrialised countries, the discussion focuses on the potential effects of intra-industry trade on low skilled labour. Particular attention is paid to possible interactions between trade and technological change and to the possible effects of trade on the price elasticity of labour. The paper also discusses how trade may affect incentives to invest in skills and thus a country's potential to alter the skill structure of its working force.

Despite being a leading export sector and source of foreign exchange for most (non-oil exporting) LDCs, tourism never makes the headlines of the WTO's Doha Development Agenda negotiations. When tourism's impressive potential for poverty alleviation is considered, the lack of attention is even more striking. Reasons for the apparent neglect are complex, and include a lack of awareness of tourism as an export sector, the fragmented nature of the industry and low political influence, exaggerated concerns over "leakages", misunderstandings about poverty alleviation and tourism, and the "poker playing" characteristic of trade negotiations. The evident results are missed opportunities to address services infrastructure constraints (one of the greatest impediments to increasing LDC tourism revenues and value-added), as well as a failure to address sufficiently tourism's agricultural, industrial, and Aid for Trade linkages. Existing national-level investment promotion objectives, as well as DTIS and TPR reports can be helpful for identifying priorities for both GATS negotiations and Aid for Trade. The focus should not necessarily be on making GATS commitments, but rather on ensuring that the importance of tourism for LDCs is acknowledged and acted upon. Indeed, governments can always further liberalize on a unilateral basis; in the context of the DDA, however, they can request greater access to trading partners' markets in exchange, as well as gain valuable international attention and publicity.

The paper first surveys the Trade Facilitation landscape at the regional level and analyses the main forces shaping it. It identifies key factors driving regional Facilitation approaches, examining their priorities, features and underlying philosophies. The study also highlights significant trends in regional Trade Facilitation provisions and analyses their implications. The paper then compares regional and multilateral initiatives, looking at areas of convergence and divergence, and highlighting where potential gaps exist. It analyses negotiating positions in the respective frameworks and discusses both the benefits and limitations of the resulting Trade Facilitation provisions. Examining the impact of the recently concluded WTO Agreement, the study highlights its potential value added.

This paper tries to assess quantitatively the role of electronic commerce in economic activity and in trade and tariff revenue collection. The share of value added that potentially lends itself to electronic trade represents around 30 percent of GDP, most importantly distribution, finance and business services. Electronic commerce is also likely to boost trade in many services sectors significantly. Despite the growing importance of electronic commerce for economic activity and trade, tariff revenue loss from electronic commerce is likely to be minimal. Trade in potentially digitizable media goods which currently faces a tariff in some countries represents less than one percent of total world trade. The revenue collected on these products amounts to less than one percent of total tariff revenue in most countries. Even if some of this trade moved “online”, tariff revenue loss would be only a very small share of tariff revenue.