World Trade Organization

This paper identifies some of the key intersections between trade policy and water management, in areas such as agriculture, hydropower generation, water services and wastewater management.
From a trade policy perspective, the main immediate concern is to ensure that international trade rules and disciplines do not unduly affect countries’ ability to manage their water resources sustainably and according to their respective social preferences. While the local nature of water systems and the diversity of water management objectives is not conducive to the application of trade instruments to enforce a prescriptive, one-size-fits-all approach to water management, there
is also a range of areas in which trade policy could support the sustainable management of water
and related SDG objectives.

The entry into force of the World Trade Organization (WTO) TRIPS Agreement in 1995 transformed the international intellectual property system. The harmonization of basic intellectual property standards has operated to protect investment in innovation, limiting risks from unjustified ‘free riding’. Yet these same harmonized IP standards sharply curtailed the traditional capacity of suppliers of public goods, such as health care and nutrition, to address priority needs of less affluent members of society, particularly in (but not limited to) developing countries. In the Doha Declaration, the Waiver Decision of 30 August 2003 and the Article 31bis Protocol of Amendment, stakeholders concerned with re-opening policy space for the supply of newer pharmaceutical products pushed back against restrictive elements of the TRIPS Agreement.Governments around the world are in the process of deciding whether to ratify and accept the Article 31bis Amendment. Based on their Study for the Internatio...

Il processo di trasformazione della Comunità Internazionale, avviatosi nella seconda metà del secolo scorso, si caratterizza per l’affermarsi del principio della cooperazione tra soggetti internazionali, in luogo del tradizionale principio dell’equilibrio di potenza. Ciò ha portato allo sviluppo di organizzazioni volte ad implementare tale cooperazione. A sua volta il ruolo assunto dalle organizzazioni internazionali ha favorito l’emergere di interessi riconducibili alla Comunità Internazionale in quanto tale, la cui cura è stata ricondotta all'interno degli ordinamenti giuridici delle diverse organizzazioni. Il parallelo sviluppo dei sistemi giurisdizionali ha favorito la ricognizione di principi giuridici volti ad individuare dei limiti all'azione statale di tutela dei propri interessi ove questa, pur legittimamente esercitata, si ponga in contrasto con interessi riconosciuti a livello internazionale e tutelati attraverso l’azione delle organizzazioni internazionali. Il si...

The trade policy regimes that existed before and after the Uruguay Round of multilateral trade negotiations were strikingly different. Before 1994, the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) was the primary institution of international trade. Though the GATT pillars of non-discrimination and reciprocity established text- based parameters on its Members' industrial policies, in practice the institution was relatively disengaged

Data Profiling which aims to categorize people to decide their eligibility for certain services, inter alia social and economic services, where an automated decision is taken by computers based on people’s profiles. These decisions may pose risks to people’s lives without their awareness, or they might know only when negative consequences occur to them. This may rise questions regarding personal data protection when analyzing such data then categorizing it into different profiles. It also challenges the main principles of the EU Data Protection Directive in a way that makes the directive insufficient to provide protection to data subjects against such profiling risks.

Until the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) was born (January 1, 1995) the rules of the trading system pertained to trade in goods, not services. Where as tariffs are the principal barriers to trade in goods, domestic laws and regulations are the barriers to trade in services.

The scope of GATS in breathtaking. It applies to any measure (e.g., law, regulation) take by government at any level, from central to-local, which affects specified services. At present, the GATS is one of the several agreements being negotiated in the current (2000 to 2005) round of World Trade Organization (WTO) negotiations.

The GATS expands the rights and protections of corporate investors. By expanding the reach of global institutions with legally binding authority over national policy decisions, transnational corporations seek to replace the complex role of the state with a single goal: pursuit of profit. The European Commission acknowledged that GATS is "first and foremost an instrument for the benefits of business, and not only for business in general, but for individual service companies wishing to export services or to invest and operate abroad."

WTO member governments must be persuaded to take -- "carve out" -- essential services from the negotiations. State or provincial and local governments should be clearly exempted from the jurisdiction of the GATS. Governments should insist on safeguards that enable them to measure negative social impacts from liberalization, specify a "trigger level" for applying safeguards, and respond with regulatory and subsidy actions that may not be WTO-consistent.

Esta obra analiza el proceso de consolidación de la autoridad de las Organizaciones Internacionales Intergubernamentales (OII) y, en especial,  el proceso de creación de una de sus fuentes de poder, la legitimidad. En ella se defiende que estas instituciones, en la mayoría de los casos, carecen de métodos de aplicación coercitiva para imponer su autoridad y dependen de la percepción externa sobre su labor. Asimismo, las OII se conciben como una comunidad política global cuya legitimidad se pude consolidar en el proceso de rendición de cuentas que pasa ante los Estados miembros y ante la sociedad civil global. En este trabajo se elabora y se propone la noción de legitimidad social para examinar y valorar dicho proceso. Así, la legitimidad social es una característica no material con capacidad de impulsar el cumplimiento, fundada en las percepciones subjetivas de los otros actores de la comunidad política sobre los tres criterios objetivos que describen el comportamiento de la OII: los valores morales, el principio de legalidad y la efectividad. Los estudios sobre la legitimidad social de la ONU, la OMC y la OIT ofrecidos en esta obra demuestran las debilidades y fortalezas de la legitimidad social de cada una de ellas, tanto desde una perspectiva objetiva como atendiendo a la percepción de los diferentes actores que la analizan.

In nowadays conditions of modernity, the complex, tense, opaque and intrinsically contradictory globalization process dominates all forms of social life, not letting us exactly know how it works, what its face is and even its definition is not consensual among the different social scientists. Nevertheless, we can state that it is unanimously considered that globalization is presupposed to have different

Questions of power are central to understanding global trade politics and no account of the World Trade Organization (WTO) can afford to avoid at least an acknowledgment of the concept. A closer examination of power can help us to explain why the structures and rules of international commerce take their existing forms, how the actions of countries are either enabled or disabled, and what distributional outcomes are achieved. However, within conventional accounts, there has been a tendency to either view power according to a single reading - namely the direct, coercive sense - or to overlook the concept entirely, focusing instead on liberal cooperation and legalization. In this book, Matthew Eagleton-Pierce shows that each of these approaches betray certain limitations which, in turn, have cut short, or worked against, more critical appraisals of power in transnational capitalism. To expand the intellectual space, the book investigates the complex relationship between power and legitimation by drawing upon Pierre Bourdieu's notion of symbolic power. A focus on symbolic power aims to alert scholars to how the construction of certain knowledge claims are fundamental to, and entwined within, the material struggle for international trade. Empirically, the argument uncovers and plots the recent strategies adopted by Southern countries in their pursuit of a more equitable trading order. By bringing together insights from political economy, sociology, and law, Symbolic Power in the WTO not only enlivens and enriches the study of diplomatic practice within a major multilateral institution, it also advances the broader understanding of power in world politics.

Using objective measures of investor protections in 170 countries, I establish that the level of investor protection matters for cross-country differences in GDP growth: countries with stronger protections tend to grow faster than those with poor investor protections.

Essay 1: Legal Smart Contracts – General aspects
Observation

In the world, we have some methods to resolve legal conflicts. In any case, the ultimate goal of the governor to prevent private revenge in the centralized system is to send conflicts to the judicial system.

It is safe to say that the government has a monopoly of justice. Because the government, which includes politicians and political issues, controls the law and controls the judicial system as a judge, prosecutors and lawyers.

Every country has the same system for resolving conflicts. Every country, with rare exceptions, has a legislative system, judicial system, and executive system. They call this the ecosystem as “The Three Pillars of Power” in a Rule of Law Republic.

The Three Pillars of Power are evident as the main element of the centralized system for building laws in the legislative system, enforcing law in the judicial system, and administration by the executive system.

This means that the government has absolute control over the three pillars of power in the Democratic State. Absolute government control over the three pillars of democratic power does not represent the sentiment of the people. We often see inequality in countries. Inequality is the effect of the administration of the three pillars of democracy. Thus, inequality is a political effect.

The judicial system in many countries has the same problems, as follow:

    High cost for taxpayers;
    High cost to access the judicial system;
    Power abuse. Court officials, prosecutors, lawyers, the judiciary police;
    Inequality. The world judicial system pays more attention to the rich and less attention to other social classes.
    The time to resolve conflicts is longer;
    Inefficiency to resolve conflicts;
    Corruption;
    Racism;
    Political power submission;

The judicial system needs to evolve to be called fair.

Perhaps as we think of the judicial system we will remember the judicial system in the developed country. But we think of the judicial system in developing countries or the third world, fourth world, fifth world. How do people in those countries have rights and duties guaranteed in the judicial system? How they access the judiciary to resolve their conflicts that are Law and Duties between people? Just look at these people to see the evidence that their rights and duties are not respected by the State they are a citizen of.

There are many conflicts that do not need government or other intermediary intervention. The judicial system should be reserved for solving State problems regarding political agents and public administration. Thus, the judiciary must oversee and control the government and judge its action or omission against the people.

In the background, the judicial system must judge each person’s action or omission against human life and the State. The others are rights and duties such as the crime against material or immaterial property, domestic or international commercial conflicts, civil law, criminal law, except crime against human life among others, there is no need for access to the judicial system to be resolved.

It is common for companies to access the court system to resolve worker-related, unpaid, consumer law, real estate law such as renting, buying, selling. Many legal conflicts can be resolved without intermediaries and without access to the court system. Person to person, company to company. They can follow general law and resolve their conflicts without intermediaries.

With new technologies like Blockchain, IoT, Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, we can move from centralized to decentralized system to fix problems in the three pillars of the Democracy. In this essay, we look at solutions for the judicial system.

Argument

We consider that judicial system problem first:

Development countries;

Isolate places;

Legal Smart Contract can control rights and duties about person, company, government without intermediaries as judicial system, arbitration, mediation;

All human relationship about human rights and duties can be controlled by technologies such as Legal Smart Contract, Blockchain, Internet of things, Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning;

Legal Smart Contract can control rights and duties and solve conflicts without intermediaries within seconds;

Legal Smart Contract is a common contract with special quality. Its quality is self-execution. When the ecosystem receives instructions between the world of facts and the virtual world, the rights and duties recorded in the Legal Smart Contract are fulfilled without human intervention, without intermediaries.

This book will take you through the past, the present and into the future of the flagship institution of the international customs community: the World Customs Organization (WCO).

Our purpose is to present to you, in a comprehensive, orderly and synthetic manner, the enormous contributions that this prestigious and recognized institution has been making to the secure growth of world foreign trade.

In the development of the text, special consideration has been given to the instruments relevant to day-to-day customs work and which constitute the flagships of the WCO (the Harmonized System Convention, the Revised Kyoto Convention, the SAFE Framework of Standards, among many others), as well as to those issues which are currently of particular relevance to the WCO, to those issues that are currently of special interest to the world Customs community (Cross Border Electronic Trade, Trade Facilitation, the Future Customs Agenda, to mention but a few), trying to reconcile the various practical aspects of Customs operations with their theoretical underpinnings.

In short, these pages will be of great interest to all foreign trade operators, in particular to customs officials, customs brokers, carriers and international forwarding agents, managers of importing and exporting companies, as well as to all those (professionals and students) who wish to deepen their knowledge of the exciting world of Customs and International Trade.

The US-China trade war instigated by President Trump has thrown the multilateral trading system into a crisis. Drawing on vast interview and documentary materials, Hopewell shows how US-China conflict had already paralyzed the system of international rules and institutions governing trade. The China Paradox-the fact that China is both a developing country and an economic powerhouse-creates significant challenges for global trade governance and rule-making. While China demands exemptions from global trade disciplines as a developing country, the US refuses to extend special treatment to its rival. The implications of this conflict extend far beyond trade, impeding pro-development and pro-environment reforms of the global trading system. As one of the first analyses of the implications of US-China rivalry for the governance of global trade, this book is crucial to our understanding of China's impact on the global trading system and on the liberal international economic order. on this title 30 June 2021 Expires

This chapter assesses the future trends and trajectory of the optical media piracy. Media piracy is an evolving cybercrime which can easily adapt to the current technological and global environment. It traces briefly the development of media piracy from the VCR technology using the cassette format to the current digital and nanotechnology using the Internet and file sharing protocols. Optical disc piracy will be a transitory phenomenon in developing countries with underdeveloped IP and Internet culture. As the country increases in Internet penetration, the locus of media piracy shifts from the temporal space of the sidewalk stalls selling pirated DVDs or illegal CD–DVD shops to the cyberspace of the Internet. The use of discs becomes less popular as media piracy becomes more convenient, easier, and cheaper with direct illegal downloading, peer-to-peer sharing, and other evasive techniques using the latest sophisticated hardware and software technologies. This chapter then examines some popular and current online digital piracy such as peer-to-peer (P2P) file sharing, cyberlocker, media box, anti-circumvention technology, digital spying and hacking, and other Internet piracy supported by digital, cloud, and nanotechnology. It also makes projections on media piracy look like with the advent of quantum computing and technology. Media piracy follows technological advancement and innovation, thus making it difficult for authorities to curb as it uses the same technology used by copyright holders which provides them with a variety of options to respond to regulation. Finally, this chapter examines the difficulty of regulating the Internet and the role and future involvement of China in counterfeiting and media piracy. With the rise of online media piracy, regulating the Internet would then be the main challenge of law enforcement and copyright owners as regulating the Internet to curb piracy would not be easy with legality and illegality becoming more intimately connected with the growing sophistication of technology and conflicting business interests between service providers and content providers and between copyright industries and top IT and ICT.

How to balance the tension between the state and the market. Develop three strategies which developing countries can adopt to balance state/market relations in the context of globalisation. draw on three contending theoretical perspectives of international

One World Trade Center (also known as 1 World Trade Center, One WTC and 1 WTC; the current building was dubbed the "Freedom Tower" during initial basework) refers to the main building of the new World Trade Center complex in Lower Manhattan, New York City. It is the tallest skyscraper in the Western Hemisphere, and the fourth-tallest in the world. The 104-story supertall structure shares a numeric name with the northern Twin Tower of the original World Trade Center, which was destroyed in the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. The new skyscraper stands on the northwest corner of the 16-acre (6.5 ha) World Trade Center site, on the site of the original 6 World Trade Center. The building is bordered by West Street to the west, Vesey Street to the north, Fulton Street to the south, and Washington Street to the east.

Construction of below-ground utility relocations, footings, and foundations for the new building began on April 27, 2006. On March 30, 2009, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey confirmed that the building would be officially known by its legal name of "One World Trade Center", rather than its colloquial name of "Freedom Tower".The building is 104 standard floors high, but the tower only has 94 actual stories.

One World Trade Center became the tallest structure in New York City on April 30, 2012, when it surpassed the height of the Empire State Building. The tower's steel structure was topped out on August 30, 2012. On May 10, 2013, the final component of the skyscraper's spire was installed, making the building reach a symbolic height of 1,776 feet (541 m). Its imperial height measurement is a reference to the year when the United States Declaration of Independence was signed. The building opened on November 3, 2014. The new World Trade Center complex will initially comprise three other high-rise office buildings, which will be built along Greenwich Street, and the National September 11 Memorial & Museum, located just south of One World Trade Center, where the original Twin Towers stood. The construction of the new building is part of an effort to memorialize and rebuild following the destruction of the original World Trade Center complex

ABSTRACT:
The World Trade Organization (WTO) is a rule based multilateral trading organization which facilitates trade between nations. Its main function is to act as a forum for international cooperation on trade related policies and creation of codes of conduct for member governments.  At its center are the WTO agreements, negotiated and signed by the bulk of the world’s trading nations and ratified in their parliaments. The WTO provides a forum for negotiating agreements aimed at reducing obstacles to international trade and ensuring a level playing field for all, thus supposedly contributing to economic growth and development. For a structure which provides for countries to conduct negotiations and formalize trade agreements; it does not specify or define outcomes. It seeks to globalize many countries and help them sharpen their competitive edge and seek benefit from advanced technologies from other nations. It has not only affected India’s international trade but also its internal economy. This paper looks into this aspect and brings to light the many problems that businesses in India could face. When we discuss Trade Policy and its relation with Free Trade Agreements, makes us think will these policies affect businesses per se. How important are Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises for the Indian economy, what if they come under threat, will it threaten other businesses? Should Free Trade Agreements matter to Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises, will it make an impact? How will Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises cope with this complete liberalization of trade, will they be able to survive the onslaught or will they be wiped out. Will it be an opportunity or a threat to businesses in India as we see them today? These questions are too grave to be left unanswered, if left unquestioned these factors might make the survival of these businesses difficult. This paper brings to light the answers to these questions and explains their intricacies and moreover it also highlights certain basic problems that the Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises face. It also looks into the chapters and provisions of Free Trade Agreements and gives us a better perspective on the situation as a whole.

Key Words:World Trade Organization; Free Trade Agreement; Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises; Liberalization

Free trade can be defined as  “trading across national boundaries unimpeded by tariff duties, quotas, regulations or other barriers to the movement of goods and services”. Free trade was initiated to promote the ease of exchange of goods and services worldwide.  Free trade is exemplified by the European Union (EU), North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and the World Trade Organisation (WTO). The notion of free trade was first proposed by Adam Smith in his 1776 book ‘The Wealth of Nations’. In 1947, The General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) reduced the barriers to trade, succeeding this, the World Trade Organisation (WTO) initiated free trade. There is a lot of controversy as to whether free trade is a help or hindrance to developing countries.  In my essay, I will discuss the arguments made for and against free trade. Concluding with my own personal opinion on the extent of which free trade can provide a route for poorer countries to achieve economic development.

Good faith is insufficient in bringing about a multilateral public order. An international community that applies the principle of good faith effectively does not exist. Arguably, rather than a robust juridical mechanism, good faith represents common sense in international law. However, an effective and functioning multilateral public order needs more than that. This becomes all the more palpable in respect of issues such as external sovereign debt, where public international law is inchoate.

In this research the authors seek to critically evaluate the practice of regionalism within the meaning of the United Nations Charter and the reactions from the African Union. It appears that there are some unanswered questions that keep on re-shaping the international order and legal framework. The authors admit that African states are putting renewed effort to fulfil their promise to render Africa a peaceful region in consistence with the spirit and letter of the Charter. However, it is also imminent that such desire to work within the UN system brings some resistance from State members. This investigation is revealing some of the key challenges determining new regionalism and African position in the post hegemonic era and neoliberalism.

In a short period of time, Covid-19 has become much bigger than just a health problem. Among other things, it has disrupted the global economy and world trade, with the biggest negative impact of the pandemic outbreak in the international services sector. During the Covid-19 crisis, in order to preserve the national economy, states started introducing trade-related measures. These measures had the potential to disrupt trade flows, supply chains, and eventually even the whole system of world trade. The paper examines the compliance of trade restriction measures taken in response to Covid-19 with the WTO rules and what the policy of the WTO was during this crisis. Since the elimination of trade restrictions is one of the WTO basic principles, this introduction of a number of restrictions had to meet certain preconditions prescribed by the WTO agreements, such as transparency, temporality, and not being discriminatory towards different countries, etc. Since the Covid-19 crisis is still ongoing, we concluded that most countries have introduced some form of trade policy measures, most of them in the form of technical barriers to trade and sanitary and phytosanitary measures, and that the introduced measures will not all be removed as long as there is an existing threat and insecurity.

In a short period of time, Covid-19 has become much bigger than just a health problem. Among other things, it has disrupted the global economy and world trade, with the biggest negative impact of the pandemic outbreak in the international services sector. During the Covid-19 crisis, in order to preserve the national economy, states started introducing trade-related measures. These measures had the potential to disrupt trade flows, supply chains, and eventually even the whole system of world trade. The paper examines the compliance of trade restriction measures taken in response to Covid-19 with the WTO rules and what the policy of the WTO was during this crisis. Since the elimination of trade restrictions is one of the WTO basic principles, this introduction of a number of restrictions had to meet certain preconditions prescribed by the WTO agreements, such as transparency, temporality, and not being discriminatory towards different countries, etc. Since the Covid-19 crisis is still ongoing, we concluded that most countries have introduced some form of trade policy measures, most of them in the form of technical barriers to trade and sanitary and phytosanitary measures, and that the introduced measures will not all be removed as long as there is an existing threat and insecurity.

This paper reviews the implications of the agreement on Trade- Related Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) under the World Trade Organization (WTO). It focuses on the national implemention of the TRIPS agreement, technological development, plant variety protection, geopgraphical indications, and biological diversity and the associated indigenous knowledge. The paper argues that efforts to promote compliance with to the TRIPS agreement should

World Trade Organization sebagai sebuah organisasi ‘penyetir’ peraturan perdagangan negara maju dan negara berkembang memegang peranan penting untuk mensejahterakan negara-negara anggota dengan mendorong adanya perdagangan bebas. Mandat yang luar biasa tersebut sejatinya harus dihasilkan melalui pertimbangan yang adil, transparan, serta mampu menyelesaikan permasalahan dengan tidak didominasi faktor politik. Dengan kebijakan WTO, yang diharapkan akan terus memperhatikan kondisi pertumbuhan dan perkembangan ekonomi negara berkembang, Indonesia sudah seharusnya siap menentukan arah kebijakan perdagangan nasional yang sejalan dengan WTO. Siapkah Indonesia?