In 2001 an agreement was reached at the WTO for the EU to introduce a tariff-only regime which would result in at least maintaining total market access for MFN banana suppliers. The analysis shows that, contrary to the WTO 2005 ruling, the import regime proposed by the EU in the second step of...

A spatial price equilibrium model with a large coverage of countries, policies and regional trade arrangements is applied to simulate preferential sugar imports of the European Union (EU) in 2015/16 under different assumptions with respect to the expansion of the sugar sectors of various least...

This report looks at procedures and processes related to non-tariff measures in agricultural trade. Based on the prior that countries are likely to make efforts to reduce the trade hindering effects of domestic food regulation within regional trade agreements, we focus on three different RTAs,...

In the negotiations on agriculture in the World Trade Organization, it was asserted that an importing state trading enterprise affects the domestic market but not the international market. This claim is investigated through specifying a model of intermediaries in international trade. There are...

Under existing food labelling rules in Australia, palm oil can be classified generically as a ‘vegetable oil' on labels. The Community Affairs Committee of the Australian Senate is currently conducting an inquiry into the Food Standards Amendment (Truth in Labelling — Palm Oil) Bill 2010...

This paper deals with the quantification of GMO regulations on bilateral trade flows. A composite index of the ‘complexity' of such regulations for sixty countries as well as an ‘objective' score for six GMO regulatory sub-dimensions has been developed. Using a gravity model, we show how...

The increased importance of environmental protection led to the introduction of sustainability-related criteria in standard-setting practices. A discomfort with the functioning, working methods and certain rigidities of the global standardizing bodies such as the ISO led to a mushrooming of a...

This paper evaluates the space the domestic support rules of the WTO Agreement on Agriculture (AoA) generate for different members to provide support subject to limits and exempt from limits. It reviews economic analysis of direct payments and market price support (MPS) and summarizes...

Developing members at the WTO are faced with shrinking policy space to support their agricultural sector owing to the restrictive provisions of the Amber Box. Contrastingly, most developed members are able to provide high levels of product-specific support without breaching their commitments, on...