The Marrakesh Agreement establishing the WTO recognizes the need for positive efforts designed to ensure that developing countries and especially the least developed among them secure a share in the growth in international trade commensurate with the needs of their economic development.This...

There has been virtually no liberalization under the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) to date. Most existing commitments are confined to guaranteeing the levels of access that existed in the mid-1990s, when the Agreement entered into force, in a limited number of sectors. The only...

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 WTO Agreement on Fisheries Subsidies aims to enhance the sustainability of fisheries resources by prohibiting some of the most harmful types of fisheries subsidies. Implementation of the Agreement will enhance fisheries sustainability, which in turn will make an important contribution to...

What is the value of the WTO Committee on Agriculture? How much trade do countries talk about at the WTO? Do low-income countries participate less than they should in the work of the Committee? How important are issues not covered by notifications? What are the most important issues on which to...

We investigate to what extent the probability that a Specific Trade Concern (STC) is raised in the WTO against a Member in a given sector is affected by past reductions in applied tariffs. Employing an identification strategy based on “new measures”, we find evidence of a substitution of...

MERCOSUR is one of the most important examples of renewed world-wide interest in regional trade agreements. It may be seen as a consolidation of unilateral reforms undertaken in conjunction with major macroeconomic adjustments. The paper reviews the objectives of MERCOSUR and assesses its...

This paper assesses the impact of the 2005 multilateral Hong Kong Ministerial decision on duty free quota free (DFQF) market access for products originating in Least developed countries (LDCs) on the latter's export performance. The analysis is conducted over a sample of 41 LDCs, with data...

This paper analyses the trade effects of restrictive product standards on the margins of trade for a large panel of French firms. To focus on restrictive product standards only, we use a new database compiling the list of measures that have been raised as concerns in dedicated committees of the...