Contrary to the prevailing view that the Doha negotiations have achieved little, the authors find that on trade facilitation much progress has been made. This is particularly true in regard to action by development banks and bilateral development agencies to meet client demand for assistance in...

The Uruguay Round agreements impose bound obligations to implement, but provide only unbound promises of assistance is there a legal solution within the WTO legal system, i.e. can implementation assistance be made a legal obligation? The author concludes that the Doha negotiations on trade...

The trade facilitation negotiations have been one of the more active topics in the Doha negotiations. At the same time, extensive reforms have been put in place among WTO members, including a number of developing Members. This paper focuses on how a WTO agreement might support the process of...

Some useful and productive social systems would be destroyed by the policing of intellectual property “rights” within them. This note examines how US professional (gridiron) football would be affected

All dogs have fleas, therefore all dogs have legs with which to scratch. Similarly, any government committed to a generally open trade policy will be pestered for ‘import relief’ by one industry or another – usually on grounds that its situation is ‘exceptional.’ It follows that...

Trade remedies have served the GATT/WTO system well in that they have provided the mechanisms for Member governments to manage protectionist pressures so that new import restrictions have minimally compromised the momentum of liberalization that negotiations have established. They are however an...