In the light of the events surrounding the Seattle Ministerial in December 1999 and the fate of the Multilateral Agreement on Investment, increasing attention is being paid not only to the substance of trade policy but to the processes through which it is effected. Growing realization of the need to enhance transparency and legitimacy in trade policy decision-making is reflected in debates on the openness of the multilateral processes most obviously represented by the World Trade Organization. Somewhat less attention has been paid to ways in which national trade policy processes are adapting to these pressures. The article argues the need to redress the balance and suggests that it is possible to analyse the development of at least some national trade policy environments in terms of a shift from a ‘club’, through an ‘adaptive club’ to a ‘multistakeholder’ model. These are examined with specific reference to the development of the latter in the Canadian and European Union contexts.

This article analyses the relationship between national climate change policy instruments and WTO rules with particular emphasis on the case of Germany. Our main finding is that national policies whose aim is to reduce greenhouse gases can be brought into compliance with international trade law. Compliance can be achieved, first, through various methods of labelling electricity from renewable resources. Second, it can be achieved through trading systems for green certificates that respect basic WTO principles. Third, it can be achieved through energy taxes. To offset the competitive impacts of such taxes, border tax adjustments are a possibility. Although WTO law has not yet clearly defined the eligibility of border tax adjustments for energy taxes, the balance of evidence suggests that it would support such adjustments under certain circumstances. Fourth, compliance with WTO rules can be achieved through financial incentives to the producers of energy from renewable sources which are conferred in such a way that they do not pass through the hands of the government. Hence, climate change policies can even rely on ‘subsidies’ (in the economic sense) without getting into conflict with WTO rules. Fifth, when compliance cannot be achieved, national policies aiming at international environmental protection can claim an exception under GATT Article XX (b) or (g) if measures are not applied in an arbitrary or discriminatory manner. In addition, countries should further strive to find solutions to the global climate change problem in the Kyoto process.

It is with pleasure that I call your attention to the following changes in the team responsible for producing the World Trade Review.

According to traditional constitutional theory, foreign affairs is the prerogative of the executive. However, globalisation and the dual process of internationalisation of domestic affairs and domestification of international affairs imply that the days when foreign policy was the exclusive domain of the executive are over. The article explores the effects of globalisation on the role of Parliament in international relations in general, and WTO negotiations specifically, using the Norwegian Parliament as an illustration. Three findings are presented. First, at the international level attempts are made to develop a ‘parliamentary dimension of the WTO’. Second, at the national level the Norwegian Parliament has become more actively engaged in international relations. And, third, the Norwegian Parliament plays an important role in the processes of defining national interests and determining national negotiation positions in the WTO, especially with regard to possible trade-offs between the offensive interests of fisheries and the defensive interests of agriculture.

This article discusses the issue of the capacity to be a party (legitima persona standi in iudicio) to the dispute settlement proceedings of the World Trade Organization (WTO) and addresses the question whether there is a need stemming from the system of norms in the WTO to involve non-Members, especially non-State actors, as participants in its dispute settlement process.

This paper uses a newly collected dataset on business costs to investigate empirically whether small and remote economies are inherently uncompetitive. Although in theory these economies can overcome their small size by specialising and trading, this may not be enough to generate acceptable incomes because they face a combination of diseconomies of small scale and high transaction costs. We conclude that there are almost certainly some very small economies for which this is true. These economies are likely to become less attractive for commercial activities as globalization proceeds and their current trade preferences are eroded. The policy solution is not protection, however, but proactive policies from the international community.

Proposed tobacco control measures such as mandating plain packaging of products and prohibiting the use of terms such as ‘light’ and ‘mild’ when associated with tobacco products raise the issue of to what degree WTO Members have regulatory freedom in relation to trademarks under the TRIPs Agreement. This paper uses these measures as a case study to examine rules relating to registration and use of trademarks. More particularly, the scope of Article 20 is addressed, as is the issue of whether TRIPs creates a positive right to use a trademark. This paper argues that no right of use is provided for by TRIPs and that Article 20, whilst not prohibiting the measures in question, is not based upon sound principle and is difficult to interpret. Finally, this paper argues that rules relating to use of trademarks require re-negotiation and that a minimum standard of protection for use of trademarks is not justified except where such a standard relates to principles of national treatment or most-favored-nation principles.

Small and poor countries pose a challenge for the World Trade Organization (WTO). These countries have acquired a significant say in WTO decision-making. However, they have limited ability to engage in the reciprocity game that is at the heart of the WTO, and have limited interests in the broader liberalization agenda because of their preferential access to industrial country markets. Accommodating the interests of the small and poor countries is desirable in itself, but would also facilitate expeditious progress in the Doha Round. The stark reality facing the system is that the desirable ways of addressing their concerns – providing them additional financial assistance and nonpreferential market access – is proving infeasible. As a result, the system is gravitating toward the less desirable option of relieving these countries of obligations, including those that might be welfare-enhancing for them.

Using econometric methods, this analysis develops quantity impacts of impediments to trade in voice telephone services, focusing on the perspective of negotiated agreements. These impacts, estimated on the basis of market, demographic, and policy variables, establish a baseline from which the achievements of future trade rounds, including the Doha Round, could be compared. In a departure from previous literature in this area, this article draws on documents appended or pertaining to the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) to identify barriers to trade in voice telephone services, and to estimate quantity impacts on this basis. The article finds that market access and national treatment commitments scheduled by WTO members under the GATS, when complemented by commitments to pro-competitive regulatory disciplines, may be formulated into meaningful policy variables. These policy variables are found to be statistically significant in explaining market penetration in voice telephone services, as are variables for income and private sector ownership.

In the November 2003 issue of this journal, Alan Sykes describes the WTO Safeguards Agreement (SA) as ‘a mess’ (Sykes, 2003). The author sets out to show that the criteria for using safeguards protection under WTO rules, and Appellate Body (AB) decisions related to dispute settlement cases over such protection, are incoherent. Any use of protection under the SA therefore appears doomed to being struck down in a WTO challenge. The author believes that the AB could rectify this situation in the form of guidelines to make safeguards protection operational, assuming that such protection should be used in the first place.

CHARNOVITZ: The Appellate Body's decision in the Tariff Preferences case demonstrates the value of a second-level review of panel decisions. Notwithstanding the composition of the panel – which was as highly qualified, balanced, and diverse as any panel could possibly be – the panel issued a decision that met widespread disapproval. In what is probably a record for third-party support of the plaintiff, eight countries asked the Appellate Body to reverse key points. Happily, the Appellate Body did reverse many of the troubling holdings in the panel report. Unhappily for the world community, the Appellate Body did not have an opportunity to review the panel's interpretation of GATT Article XX, which (like many previous panels) has chiseled away at vital exceptions.

To what extent are the problems of small island economies unique, thus compromising the potential welfare gains from freer international trade? Is comparative advantage enough or even relevant in analysing the benefits from international trade for such economies? If the answer to the latter question is in the negative, then how can the WTO process be modified to maximise gains to the participants? Alan Winters and Pedro Martins (W&M) analyse the first of these two questions, arguing that comparative advantage is not enough, while Aaditya Matoo and Arvind Subramanian (M&S) come to the conclusion that desirable ways of addressing concerns of small countries within the WTO process are proving to be infeasible. Even though W&M and M&S raise legitimate concerns about small economies, I disagree with their policy conclusions. I argue below that comparative advantage is as applicable to small countries as to large countries and that liberal and uniform trading rules for all countries, with the option of temporary lump-sum transfers to the vulnerable ones, can achieve the dual objectives of economic efficiency with redistribution.

I thank Professor Jones for his thoughtful commentary on my paper regarding the ‘safeguards mess’ in the November 2003 issue of this Review. I disagree with him on some key points, however, and believe that he has misread my position on others. Accordingly, I am grateful to the editors of the World Trade Review for this opportunity to offer a brief rejoinder.

With rapid changes taking place in the global trading environment, there has been concern within several international arenas and academia about the future of small developing countries (SDCs). Although the discussion relating to the effects of country size on economic growth and development began in the early 1960s with the publication of Kuznets' (1960) article and Demas' (1965) monograph, there has been a recent flurry of writings on small developing countries in the context of the new global order. For example, the World Bank in collaboration with the Commonwealth Secretariat (2000) undertook a major study of small states and their ability to meet the challenges of a changing global economic environment. Kennes (2000) and Salvatore et al. (2001) have also analyzed the challenges and opportunities facing small countries in the global marketplace. The Commonwealth Secretariat had previously arranged two expert panels to examine the vulnerability of small states in a global society and also the future of small states in overcoming their vulnerability (see Commonwealth Secretariat, 1985, 1997).

This paper summarizes and critically reviews the dispute brought before the World Trade Organization (WTO) concerning Canada – Measures Affecting the Importation of Dairy Products and the Exportation of Milk, euphemistically referred to herein as Canada – Dairy. This dispute is centered on the WTO Agricultural Agreement, though it also involves the WTO Subsidies and Countervailing Measures (SCM) Agreement and GATT – 1994.

The short answer to the question posed in the title is for the most part ‘yes’. The negotiators' objectives grew out of their governments' unsatisfactory experiences with GATT dispute settlement and they set out to fix what was wrong with the system. In the Uruguay Round result, WTO Members have established a system that is truly multilateral and at the same time works effectively and efficiently. Today the system is used by developed and developing countries alike and has shown itself capable of resolving extremely difficult and politically sensitive trade disputes. At the end of the Uruguay Round, the results of these negotiations were warmly praised in key capitals around the world, including in Washington. But there is at least one important US objective that, in practice, turned out not to have been met (at least in the way intended) in the Uruguay Round negotiations. Another important objective of many of the negotiators now appears to have backfired to an extent that several WTO Members are seeking to revisit their earlier achievement.

Winters and Martins (W&M) ask the question of whether small and remote economies are inherently uncompetitive? They conclude that such economies do indeed face ‘huge competitive challenges’ and they discuss options for external sources of income that might contribute to the viability of such communities.

On 16 January 2003, the WTO Appellate Body issued its report on United States – Continued Dumping And Subsidy Offset Act Of 2000 (WTO Doc. WT/DS217 and 234/AB/R). In this report, the Appellate Body condemned the so-called US Byrd Amendment by finding that it was inconsistent with the US obligations under the WTO Agreements on Antidumping (AD) and Subsidies and Countervailing Measures (SCM).

The works of Winters and Martins (W&M) and Mattoo and Subramanian (M&S) are two serious and innovative papers that begin to analyse not only what the WTO means for small states but now, just as significantly, what the numerical preponderance of small states might mean for the WTO. This latter issue is especially significant as members grapple with increasingly complex web of interests that need to be accommodated in order to arrive at a consensus in the Doha round. While neither papers represents the position of the World Bank and IMF, what they both have in common is that they approach the current round from the possibility that some WTO members, the smallest, poorest and most trade preference dependent – for example, Mauritius, Fiji, Guyana and Jamaica – may only benefit from Doha round trade liberalisation in geological time! The research, while not representing official Bretton Woods views, constitutes a dramatic shift in thinking inside the beltway from that which existed at the end of the Uruguay round when the dominant position was that ‘all members would benefit’.