In their current haste to deliver, the Doha negotiators seem to head for a package combining increased market access for “easy” products (mostly those with low or moderate tariffs) with broad exceptions in “difficult” sectors (mostly those with high tariffs). Such a mix may increase the...

Contrary to what is still often believed, the climate and trade communities have a lot in common: a common problem (a global “public good”) common foes (vested interests using protection for slowing down climate change policies) and common friends (firms delivering goods, services and...

La loi sur la modernisation de l’économie (LME) a « pour ambition de relancer la concurrence ». Mais le projet de loi déposé se réduit, en fait, à une politique de l’indice des prix. En remontant de 300 à 1000 mètres carrés le seuil de déclenchement de la procédure...

La Conférence ministérielle (la «Ministérielle») de l’Organisation mondiale du commerce de Seattle (décembre 1999) a révélé en France, dès sa préparation, des lignes de fracture qui se retrouvent, à bien des égards, aux États-Unis. Face à un large consensus des partis de...

MANY governments think they could not secure the support of domestic producer interests for the trade-liberalizing agreements they negotiate with other countries without provisions in them that permit a degree of flexibility in implementing the core obligations they undertake in the event of...

Le dumping ne paraît pas analysé de façon satisfaisante par la théorie tradition­nelle : celle-ci le réduit, en effet, à un simple processus statique de discrimina­tion par les prix entre les marchés intérieur et extérieurs. En prenant deux différentes approches, cet article offre...

Designing its trade policy towards China, Europe should exert extreme foresightedness. Rather than to be trapped in bilateral trade balance conflicts (economically meaningless and politically hopeless), the EU should push for objectives that are attractive to its own interests, and to Chinese...

In its latest Report on the “financial and economic crisis and trade-related developments” (26 March 2009), the WTO used the term “significant slippage” to qualify changes in protection observed from late 2008 to March 2009. Most of the newspapers in the world translated these terms into...

The European Union’s recent trade policy strategy towards China, which focuses on bilateral market access and involves a strong U S-style confrontational stance, is ineffective and short-sighted. Today there exists no genuine dialogue between China and the EU on crucial commercial issues. This...

This following study is a “meta-evaluation” of the way aid agencies evaluate and assess their trade-related operations – and was undertaken as part of the OECD’s broader efforts to improve the effectiveness of aid-for-trade. It focuses on 162 evaluations of operations in two countries -...