The beleaguered progress of the Doha Development Agenda of the WTO presents something of a puzzle for economic theory: if multilateralism is an effective forum for liberalisation (as it has been in the past), then why have the current round of talks faltered amid the proliferation of preferential trade negotiations? Several authors have argued that the consensus decision-making and single-under...

the least developed and developing countries constitute two third of the members the world trade organizations (wto). these groups of countries have different views and concerns on international trade issues. as far as development is concerned, they have different needs and their economic system is often weak and fragile and therefore, they need extra protection. the wto agreements contain spec...

The first Ministerial Conference of the World Trade Organization (WTO), held in Singapore during 9-13 December 1996, had a rough start. The United States (US) had wanted to create a WTO working group on labour standards, which developing countries bitterly opposed. In the end, developing countries prevailed and the US effectively agreed to delegate the subject to the International Labour Organi...

The presented paper aims at providing a comprehensive analysis of the impact of China’s WTO accession. The analysis used a 41-sector, 10-households recursive dynamic CGE model of China. Dualistic foreign trade regimes ordinary trade regime and processing trade regimes, which represents an important feature of China’s foreign trade is introduced in the model. A 1995 social accounting matrix is c...

Since its inception in 1995, the World Trade Organization (WTO) has arbitrated trade disputes between its members in part by deciding whether unilateral actions by its 134 member nations such as trade bans or restrictions violate international free trade rules and authorizing penalties against members that are found to be noncompliant with such rules. The WTO is criticized by those who believe ...

In November 2002, the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA), Africa’s major free trade bloc, applied to the World Trade Organization (WTO) for the right to manufacture low-cost drugs to treat AIDS. The Secretary General of the Organization Erastus Mwencha, in announcing this move, said that drugs must be cheaper as the world could not continue to see people dying for the sake o...

The common spiny mouse Acomys cahirinus, of Ethiopian origin, has a widespread distribution across arid, semi-arid and Mediterranean parts of the Arabian sub-region. We compared the daily energy expenditure (DEE), water turnover (WTO) and sustained metabolic scope (SusMS=DEE/resting metabolic rate) of two adjacent populations during the winter. Mice were captured from North- and South- facing s...

This paper attempts to study the usage of the GATT/WTO dispute settlement mechanism and to explain its patterns across different regimes and decades, using a unified theoretical model. This study first explores the role of the degree of legal controversy over a panel ruling in determining countries’ incentives to block/appeal a panel report under the GATT/WTO regime. The model is able to explai...

Paragraph 31(iii) of the Doha Ministerial Declaration mandates to the liberalization of environmental goods and services. This mandate offers a good opportunity to put climate-friendly goods and services on a fast track to liberalization. Agreement on this paragraph should represent one immediate contribution that the WTO can make to fight against climate change. This paper presents the key iss...