The lure of big benefits from successful conclusion of the multilateral negotiations and the risks of bilateral and regional routes if these negotiations fail should not be taken by the developing countries as determining factors in their moves in the current WTO Doha negotiations. Working...

Developing countries have been characterized as having played an essentially defensive role in the GATT, unwilling to make tariff concessions, and have focused almost exclusively on securing Special and Differential Treatment concessions. These three perspectives have become part of the...

The World Trade Organisations 2004 Trade Policy Review of Singapore (WTO-TPR Singapore 2004) depicts the small and outward-oriented economy as one of the most open country to international trade and investment. The review highlights the benefits of the outward-oriented strategy that has enabled...

Regionalism has become a key component of the new international order. It offers to the governments of developed and developing countries a new and attractive complementary strategy to multilateralism. Most countries of the world today belong to one or more regional trading arrangements of some...

This paper summarizes the conceptual rationale for investment liberalization to fully exploit the potential of regional trading arrangements. It goes on to examine the treatment of investment in emerging FTAs/RTAs in the Asia-Pacific region and the specific investment provisions and their...

This paper was designed to provide a policy guide in the formulation of the countrys position for RP-US FTA negotiations. After sieving through the relevant treaties and legislation in both the US and the Philippines, it was concluded that the implementation of treaty commitments in trade...

The service sector is evolving. New services and new modes of delivering existing services have increased the complexities of services negotiations in the WTO and in FTAs. The WTO negotiations focus on market access but FTAs tend to go beyond market access to seeking regulatory commitments from...

This paper makes a compelling case for public intervention for fostering industrial development. We have also summarized evidence that suggests that present day developed countries have extensively employed infant industry protection, industrial policy and performance requirements, soft...

A Four Member delegation of experts from the Centre for Policy Dialogue (CPD) undertook a WTO Tracking Mission in Geneva during March 14-20, 2008. The Tracking Mission was undertaken as part of CPDs Trade Related Research and Policy Development (TRRPD) programme. Under the TRRPD programme CPD...

Over the recent past, Geographical Indication (GI) has emerged as one of the most contentious categories of intellectual property (IP). Two among the three TRIPS issues presently under discussion at the WTO pertain to GIs, the third being the relationship between the TRIPS and the CBD....