What Are in Your View the Main Principles Governing International Trade Policy

Course world(prenominal) Political Economy GT27M/ GOVT 2049 ID Number 620033630 Name Matthew Thomas Lecturer Sheldon Barnes regard of Submission 7/9/2012 Question I What atomic number 18 in your view the main normals governing inter content clientele indemnity in the context of the WTO and which would be the main provisions in which you find these conventions reflected in the WTO understandings? Please elabo deemFormed in 1995 to replace its predecessor the familiar Agreement on Tariffs and pile(GATT), under the Treaty of Marrakech, The World Trade Organization (WTO) is the entirely international organization that deals and treats with the global rules of profession between nations. Its main execute is to fit that trade flows as smoothly, predictably and freely as possible. The name and address of the WTO is to aid and facilitate producers of goods and run, exporters, and significanceers conduct their business.At its core are the WTO agreements, negotiated and sign ed by a absolute majority of the worlds trading nations and approved deep down their respective parliaments. These principles aid in the efficient government of international trade policy ensuring that alone signatories adhere to the contract they are bind to, by this governments are now required to create national trade policies truthful by nonifying the WTO about present laws in actions and measures implemented, and through regular reports by the secretariat on countries trade policies.The WTO agreements cover goods, services and intellectual station. They apologise the principles of liberalisation, as well as the go a focal pointed exceptions. They include individual countries commitments to lower springer tariffs and different trade roadblocks, and to open and maintain open services commercializes. The agreements laid unconscious processs for settling disputes prescribe special treatment for under demonstrable countries.The agreements of the WTO are enlarge and i ntricate as they are legal texts that facilitate a simple range of activities much(prenominal) as agriculture, clothing and textiles, banking and finance, telecommunications, government purchases, industrial standards and turnout safety, food sanitation regulations, intellectual property, among former(a)wises. A number of simple, fundamental principles eat throughout tout ensemble of these documents. These principles exist as the foundation of the international mevery-sided trading administration.Given that the core of the WTO, especially leading out of the Doha cps of Trade Negotiations 2001- present, is to reduce and adjust the concerns that are faced by maturation nations the main principles within the context of the WTO that validate international trade policy are i) Trade without dissimilitude ii) Freer Trade iii) Promotion of fair rival v) cultivation and economic reform. These principles of international trade within the legislation of the WTO merchant ship be reflected in trade agreements drafted by the organisation.The principle of Trade without contrast has two key underlying principles Most Favoured Nation MFN and issue treatment NT. The MFN, in encumbrance is simply treating opposite people equally. As legislated by WTO agreements, countries are prohibited from discrimination between their trading partners. Wherein one body politic is restricted from granting a particular arena a special favour e. g. such as a lower customs duty rate for one of their products and this favour is not ext land uped to all the other members of the WTO. This principle is known as Most Favoured Nation (MFN) treatment.The first article of theGeneral Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) 1947, which is the governing legislation for the trade in goods, this article speaks to prohibition of member nations to discriminate between like products originating from other member nations. In denomination I of the GATT it states any advantage, favour, privileg e or immunity granted by any contracting party to any product originating in or destined for any other commonwealth shall be accorded immediately and flatly to the like product originating in or destined for the territories of all other contracting parties. MFN is overly a focus in expression II of General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS), where it states to each one Member shall accord immediately and unconditionally to services and service suppliers of any other Member treatment no slight palmy than that it accords to like services and service suppliers of any other rustic. Likewise Article IV on theAgreement on Trade-Related Aspects of sharp Property Rights (TRIPS) which states With regard to the shield of intellectual property, any advantage, favour, privilege or mmunity granted by a Member to the nationals of any other country shall be accorded immediately and unconditionally to the nationals of all other Members. The agreements in essence cover all three main a reas of trade handled by the WTO and gives guidelines as how to WTO member nations execute their trade policies. Though the essence of the MFN treatment is to appropriate some sense of equality among WTO signatories exceptions are permitted. For example, countries can set up a free trade agreement that applies only to goods traded within the classify severalise against goods from outside.Or they can give evolution countries special feeler to their markets. Or a country can raise barriers against products that are considered to be traded below the belt from specific countries. And in services, countries are catered, in throttle circumstances, to discriminate. Though these exceptions exist, they are permitted under highly strict conditions. In essence, the MFN policy acts a facilitator to ensure that every time a country lowers a trade barrier or opens up a market, it has to do so for the same goods or services from all its trading partners regardless(prenominal) of their economic development.National Treatment eliminates discrimination between the products of national and unconnected services or nationals, in this sense the protocol for national products are expected to be reciprocated to that of foreign entities. once foreign goods enter a local market, the expectation exists that they should be enured equally as the locally-produced goods. This expectation extends pass produce it should apply to foreign and domestic services, and also foreign and local trademarks, copyrights and patents.Given that NT covers various areas of trade it is highlighted in three main WTO agreements. In Article collar of the GATT it is stated that The products of the dominion of any contracting party writeed into the territory of any other contracting party shall be accorded treatment no less favourable than that accorded to like products of national origin in respect of all laws, regulations and requirements affect their internal sale, offering for sale, purchase , transportation, distri onlyion or use. Article XVII ofGATSstates that each Member shall accord to services and service suppliers of any other Member, in respect of all measures affecting the supply of services, treatment no less favourable than that it accords to its own like services and service suppliers. Article III ofTRIPS, speaks to the issue of Intellectual Property IP by stating that Each Member shall ccord to the nationals of other Members treatment no less favourable than that it accords to its own nationals with regard to the protection(3)of intellectual property The three treaties highlights the areas of trade the WTO governs, from that of goods exchange, services exchange and the grandness of ensuring the proper utilisation of Intellectual Property rights such as copyrighting and patenting. accord to the WTO National treatment only applies once a product, service or item of intellectual property has entered the market.Therefore, charging customs duty on an import is not a violation of national treatment even if locally-produced products are not charged an equivalent tax. In conclusion, the Trade without Discrimination principle with its two underlying principles of Most Favoured Nation MFN and National Treatment NT policies The National Treatment principle constitute the two pillars of the non-discrimination principle that is widely seen as the foundation of the GATT/WTO multilateral trading regime. The concept of Freer Trade assists in the light of trade barriers which acts as an excellent facilitator for encouraging trade.Such barriers include customs duties (or tariffs) and measures such as import bans or quotas that restrict quantities selectively it can also span to include the decrease of other administrative barriers such as red tape- including policies of exchange rate. The WTOs global system lowers trade barriers by means of negotiation and applies the principle of non-discrimination MFN and NT. This brings about a result of a drop- off in the costs of production, as imports used in production are far cheaper a reduction in the prices of finished goods and services, which in essence can contribute to a lower cost of living.Since the GATTs creation in 1947, there put one across beeneight rounds of trade negotiations. The 9th round, under the Doha information Agenda, is still in negotiations for the past xi years. The initial focus was geared towards lowering tariffs on imported goods in time the 1980s, the negotiations had expanded to cover non-tariff barriers on goods, with the inclusion of areas such as services and intellectual property. As a result of the negotiations, the tariffs on industrial goods declined to less than 4%, during the mid-1990s. Opening markets can be beneficial, but it also requires adjustment.The WTO agreements stop countries to introduce changes gradually, through progressive liberalization. Article XIX of the GATS states with a view to achieving a progressively higher level of li beralization. Such negotiations shall be directed to the reduction or elimination of the indecent effects on trade in services of measures as a means of providing impressive market access. This process shall arrogate place with a view to promoting the interests of all participants on a mutually advantageous rump and to securing an overall balance of rights and obligations.The process of liberalization shall take place with due respect for national policy objectives and the level of development of individual Members, both overall and in individual sectors. There shall be appropriate flexibility for individual developing country Members for opening fewer sectors, liberalizing fewer types of transactions, progressively extending market access in line with their development situation and, when making access to their markets lendable to foreign service suppliers, attaching to such access conditions aimed at achieving the objectives referred to in ArticleIV. The article clearly add resses developing countries which are usually given eight-day to fulfil their obligations. The principle of Promoting fair competitionportrays The WTO as an instrument of not just extending mechanisms of free trade but is also a system of rules dedicated to open, fair and undistorted competition. By this, the system of the WTO permits tariffs and, in limited circumstances, other forms of protection. More accurately, it is based on the rules on non-discrimination MFN and NT which are knowing to secure fair conditions of trade.So too are those on fling (exporting at below cost to gain market share) and subsidies. The issues are complex, and the rules try to puddle what is fair or unfair, and how governments can respond, in particular by charging additive import duties calculated to compensate for damage caused by unfair trade. By removing some market barriers The WTO has promoted competition in the global trading market extending it beyond the borders of WTO membership the tradin g principles set by the WTO are meant to allow fair and undisturbed market competition.The WTO extends and clarifies precedent GATT rules that laid down the basis on which governments could impose compensating duties on two forms of unfair competition dumping and subsidies. WTO agreements are geared towards the embody and maintenance of fair competition in the sectors of agriculture, intellectual property, services. The WTO Agreement on agriculture is designed to provide change magnitude fairness n farm trade, the agreement on intellectual property will improve conditions of competition where ideas and inventions are involved, and another will do the same thing for trade in services. The construct of the WTO contributes to development and as it encourages development and economic reform geared towards to the developmental process of developing nations. Given that notion, developing countries require an urgent sense of flexibility to in effect implement the agreements drafted by t he organisation.The current agreements inherit the earlier provisions of GATT that allow for special assistance and trade concessions for developing countries. The WTO cannot claim to make all countries equal however it aids in the reduction of some inequalities by doing this it gives smaller countries to a greater extent voice, and at the same time freeing the major powers from the complexity of having to negotiate trade agreements with each of their numerous trading partners.A majority of over three quarters of the WTO membership comprise of developing countries and countries in transition to market economies. The 1986-1994 Uruguay attack saw over 60 of these countries implementing trade liberalisation programmes unconventionally. At the same time, developing countries and transition economies were much more active and influential in the Uruguay Round negotiations than in any previous round, this activeness has also transpired to the current Doha Development Agenda.Developing co untries were prepared to take on or so of the obligations that are required of developed countries by the end of the Uruguay Round. The agreements did grant developing nations transition periods to adjust themselves to the more stringent and cloggy provisions of the WTO. The GATT has a special section on Trade and Development which speaks to provisions on the concept of non-reciprocity in trade negotiations between developed and developing countries. Both GATT and the GATS allow developing countries some measure of advantageous treatment.Aministerial decision adopted at the end of the Uruguay Round says more developed countries should accelerate the implementation of market access commitments on goods exported by the least-developed countries, while increasing technical assistance for them. More recently, developed countries have started to allow duty-free and quota-free imports for almost all products from least-developed countries. The current Doha Development Agenda includes d eveloping countries concerns about the difficulties they face in implementing the Uruguay Round agreements. 1 . The Marrakech Agreement developed out of theGeneral Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, which it includes but it supplemented it with several other agreements, on such issues astrade in services,sanitary and phytosanitary (plant health) measures,trade-related aspects of intellectual propertyandtechnical barriersto trade. It also established a new, more efficient and legally binding means of dispute resolution. 2 . The Secretariat has a particular responsibility to provide technical support to developing countries, and especially the least-developed countries. 3 . As a result of theUruguay Roundnegotiations the treaty was created to extend the multilateral trading system toservice sector. 4 . (NAFTA)North American Free Trade Agreement is an example of one of the most successful trade agreements in history it has contributed to significant increases in untaught trade and inv estment between the United States, Canada and Mexico and has benefited farmers, ranchers and consumers throughout North America. The Mexican-Canadian agreement eliminated most tariffs either immediately or over 5, 10, or 15 years. 5 . Page 248 the proliferation of rules and regulations prescribing the conduct of decision making in bureaucratic affairs (Politics Economic Welfare) 6 . The removal or reduction of restrictions or barriers on the free exchange of goods between nations. This includes the removal or reduction of both tariff (duties and surcharges) and non-tariff obstacles (like licensing rules, quotas and other requirements). The easing or eradication of these restrictions is ofttimes referred to as promoting free trade. 7 .GATT (Article VI) allows countries to take action against dumping. The Anti-Dumping Agreement clarifies and expands Article VI, and the two operate together. They allow countries to act in a way that would normally break the GATT principles ofbinding a tariff andnot discriminatingbetween trading partners typically anti-dumping action means charging extra import duty on the particular product from the particular exporting country in order to bring its price closer to the normal pry or to remove the injury to domestic industry in the importing country. 8 . The WTO Agreement on Subsidies and Countervailing Measures disciplines the use of subsidies, and it regulates the actions countries can take to restoration the effects of subsidies. Under the agreement, a country can use the WTOs dispute-settlement procedure to seek the withdrawal of the subsidy or the removal of its adverse effects. Or the country can launch its own investigation and finally charge extra duty (countervailing duty) on subsidized imports that are found to be hurting domestic producers. 9 . This is a procedure when developed countries grant trade concessions to developing countries they should not expect the developing countries to make matching offers in ret urn. 10 . The URUGUAY ROUND AGREEMENT finding on Measures Concerning the Possible Negative Effects of the Reform Programme on Least-Developed and Net Food-Importing Developing Countries