The concept of science-based rules for the establishment of trade barriers was a new development that arose from the Uruguay Round. It is an attempt to de-politicise decision making in the complex areas of human, animal and plant health as well as aspects relating to the environment. In the...

International harmonization of standards and regulations is often a goal expressed in trade agreements because it is expected to yield gains from trade. Absence of progress toward harmonization is often interpreted as being motivated by protectionism, with differences in standards and...

The GATT was an organization that was seldom at the centre of political controversy, nor was it the object of virulent protest. The WTO, which succeeded it, however, has not enjoyed the GATT's anonymity. The controversies surrounding the WTO detract from its effectiveness and debase its...

A truly global recession has not been manifest since the Great Depression of the 1930s. As a result, the multilateral institutions put in place at the end of the Second World War to ensure that a major depression never happened again have not been tested. One of the lessons of the Great...

There is a major split between developed and developing countries over the protection of the patents in pharmaceuticals in the TRIPS. This dispute is symptomatic of the difficulties of incorporating a non-trade issue into a trade organization. Incentives and threats are examined in the context...

In recent years the United States has actively begun to engage in the negotiation of bilateral and regional trade agreements, a significant change from its long-standing commitment to the exclusive use of multilateral institutions for trade liberalization. While the "unequal economic power"...

The People's Republic of China has been working for over two decades to develop a domestic biotechnology industry. Even though China is a developing country, it is set to become a significant international player in the field of biotechnology. China's accession to the World Trade Organization in...

The technological revolutions that underlie the new information age will tax considerably the abilities of existing international institutions to bring order to international relations. Rapid rates of change may lead to chaos if international institutions cannot evolve to accommodate those...