Current Trends in Organic Agriculture Markets and Their Implications for Farmers.
The market for organic agricultural products grew steadily during the nineties with global sales estimated at US$ 25 billion in 2003. The projected impressive growth of demand for organic products in the industrialised countries,notably the United States, European Union and Japan constitute an important pull factor for the increase in the production and international trade of organic agricultural products. (more…)
Intellectual Property in Investment Agreements: The TRIPS-plus Implications for Developing Countries.
This analytical note examines, in particular, the implication of the emerging approaches relating to the fair and equitable treatment and the national and mostfavoured nation (MFN) treatment in investment agreements for the overall regimes for the protection and enforcement of IP in developing countries. (more…)
Dependency of Developing Countries on Non-Agricultural Commodities: Characteristics and Challenges.
Information on non-agricultural commodities is not as widely available as for agricultural commodities. The purpose of this paper is to identify, in contrast to agricultural commodities, what is the extent of dependency of developing countries on non-agricultural commodities, what are the main characteristics of this dependency, which developing countries are most dependent on this type of commodities and what are the challenges they face in the trade arena and from a wider developmental view. (more…)
This note considers the interest of least developed country (LDC) Members to participate in the market access negotiations of the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS). The request and offer process of negotiations begins appropriately with the submittal of an initial request. (more…)
Developments on Discussions for the Improvement of the Framework for ICSID Arbitration and the Participation of Developing Countries.
The International Centre for settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID) is established by the Convention on the Settlement of Investment Disputes between States and Nationals of Other States (the ICSID Convention) that entered into force on October 14, 1966. (more…)
Classification in Services: An Overview of the Main Issues for Developing Countries.
The main objective of this paper is to provide an overview of the main issues related to classification within the context of the services negotiations and to assist developing countries in understanding the implications. (more…)
Revenue Implications of WTO NAMA Tariff Reduction.
It is generally accepted that trade liberalisation could have a detrimental impact on developing countries’ government revenue. Indeed, since tariffs collected at the border represent a large share of total government revenues in many WTO developing country members, an overall reduction or elimination of tariffs as a result of NAMA negotiations would force governments to find alternative sources of revenue. (more…)
Commodity market stabilisation and commodity risk management: Could the demise of the former justify the latter?.
The objective of this paper is to cautiously analyse whether leaving commodity markets to operate in unfettered fashion while hedging commodity price risks through the use of commodity risk management instruments is a viable and better alternative than market stabilisation policies. (more…)
Analysis of Actual Liberalisation Versus Quad Members GATS Commitments and Offers: Focus on a) Mode 1 and b) Tourism and Travel Related Services.
This note is focused on two areas: a) mode 1 or cross-border supply of trade in services, and b) the tourism and travel related services sector. The goal of this exercise is to assess whether GATS commitments made by a few of the most developed service economies, i.e. Quad members, can be considered “weak”, below actual levels of liberalisation and occurring outside of the WTO GATS regime. (more…)
Issues of Interest to LDCs in the WTO Services Negotiations – Series No. 1: Tourism and Travel-Related Services.
The specific goal of this primer on the tourism and travel-related services sector (hereinafter referred to as “tourism services”) is to provide LDCs with both basic information pertaining to economic activity of the sector and insights of the GATS negotiations related to the sector. (more…)
On 31 July 2004, the WTO General Council decided to establish a framework for continued negotiations under the Doha Work Programme set out in the Doha Ministerial Declaration (DMD, WT/MIN(01)/DEC/1) of 2001. This note seeks to present a content analysis of the WTO General Council Decision of 31 July 2004 (WT/GC/W/535). (more…)
