Liberalizing International Trade after Doha: Multilateral, Plurilateral, Regional, and Unilateral Initiatives

by David A. Gantz

Overview

After ten years the Doha Development Round is effectively dead. A broadly comprehensive round of trade negotiations reminiscent of the Doha agenda or the Uruguay Round will not likely be attempted again in the foreseeable future. Although some have suggested that Doha's demise threatens the continued existence of the GATT/WTO system, even with some risks of increasing protectionism, the United States, the European Union, Japan, Brazil, China, and India, among others, have far too much to lose to make abandoning the WTO a rational option. If there is reason for cautious optimism post-Doha it is because there are alternatives to a comprehensive package of new or amended multilateral agreements. In addition to likely consensus on a few noncontroversial multilateral elements of Doha, the alternatives include existing and future “plurilateral” trade agreements, new or revised regional trade agreements covering both goods and services, and liberalized national trade laws and regulations in the WTO member nations. This book discusses the alternatives, which although less than ideal, may provide an impetus for continuing trade liberalization both among willing members and in some instances worldwide.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781107034204
Publisher:	Cambridge University Press
Publication date:	08/19/2013
Series:	Cambridge International Trade and Economic Law , #15
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	400
Product dimensions:	6.10(w) x 9.10(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

David A. Gantz is Samuel M. Fegtly Professor of Law and Director of the International Trade and Business Law Program at the University of Arizona, James E. Rogers College of Law. He also serves as a member of the affiliated faculty of the Latin American Studies Department. After two years with the US Agency for International Development law reform project in Costa Rica and a year as a law clerk with Judge Charles M. Merrill of the US Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit, he spent seven years with the Office of the Legal Advisor, US Department of State. Professor Gantz has served as a binational panelist under the trade dispute resolution provisions of Chapter 19 of NAFTA and the US-Canada FTA and Chapter 20 of NAFTA; as a NAFTA Chapter 11 arbitrator; and as an expert witness in other trade and investment disputes. He is the author of a textbook, NAFTA and Western Hemisphere Free Trade (2005, with Ralph Folsom and Michael Gordon); a treatise, Regional Trade Agreements: Law, Policy and Practice (2009); and Trade Remedies in North America (2010, with Gregory Bowman, Nick Covelli and I. H. Ihm).

Table of Contents

1. Introduction - pursuing trade liberalization in a post-Doha world; 2. The world trading system under GATT and the WTO, 1947–2012; 3. The Doha Round failure and the demise of the 'single undertaking'; 4. Assisting developing nations with duty-free, quota-free market access, trade facilitation, and related initiatives; 5. Preserving the environment: fisheries subsidies and trade in environmental goods; 6. New and expanded plurilateral agreements (part I); 7. New and expanded plurilateral agreements (part II) - an international services agreement; 8. Continued proliferation of regional trade agreements; 9. Widening and deepening (or disregarding) existing RTAs; 10. Concluding new and pending RTAs (part I); 11. Concluding new and pending RTAs (part II): trans-pacific partnership; 12. Unilateral approaches to trade and market liberalization; 13. Conclusions and the crystal ball.