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51. Crisis in the WTO: Restoring the Dispute Settlement Function

Author:
Robert McDougall
Publication Date:
11-2018
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Centre for International Governance Innovation
Abstract:
The impasse in the World Trade Organization (WTO) over the appointment of new members of the Appellate Body is just one symptom of crisis in cooperation on trade. Driven by skepticism about multilateralism and binding dispute settlement, and by a growing strategic and economic rivalry with China, the current US administration has elevated longstanding US concerns about WTO dispute settlement to new heights. The inability of WTO members to exercise their collective authority to interpret the meaning of their WTO commitments has meant that the Appellate Body is effectively not subject to any checks and balances. As other WTO members blocked US efforts to negotiate more member control, the United States increasingly turned to unpopular unilateral mechanisms, culminating in the current block on new appointments as part of its more disruptive trade policy. Assuming the United States will eventually return to rules-based trade, restoring the WTO dispute settlement system to full capacity and enhancing its legitimacy will likely require some changes. This might include improving mechanisms for political oversight, diverting sensitive issues from adjudication, narrowing the scope of adjudication, improving institutional support and providing members more say over certain procedures. Preserving compulsory, impartial and enforceable dispute settlement in the WTO will require an accommodation of different perspectives on how the system should function. Achieving this, in whatever form, will contribute to maintaining and even strengthening multilateral cooperation on trade.
Topic:
International Trade and Finance, World Trade Organization, Global Political Economy, and Multilateralism
Political Geography:
United States, China, Asia, and North America

52. La gouvernance des organisations régionales latino-américaines Etude comparée du rôle des secrétaires généraux (The Governance of Latin American Regional Organizations A Comparative Study of the Role of General Secretaries)

Author:
Kevin Parthenay
Publication Date:
01-2018
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Centre d'Etudes et de Recherches Internationales
Abstract:
In Latin America, as elsewhere in the world, regional and subregional organizations have multiplied recently. Scholars tend to focus on the variety of regionalisms or their ever changing nature (postliberal, post-hegemonic...). This study, through a political sociology of regionalism approach, examines Latin American regions and their actors and goes beyond the first set of questions. In this perspective, scrutinizing the regional General Secretaries of the sub-continent is particularly useful to understand how regional powers emerge. With a specific focus on the Southern Common Market (UNSUR), the Common Market of the South (MERCOSUR), the Andean Community of Nations (CAN) and the Central American Integration System (SICA), this research offers a more precise answer to the question of the configuration of power within Latin American regionalisms.
Topic:
Sovereignty, Sociology, Governance, Multilateralism, Political Science, Regional Integration, and Networks
Political Geography:
Brazil, Argentina, Colombia, Latin America, Nicaragua, Caribbean, Haiti, Dominican Republic, Mexico, Costa Rica, Chile, Peru, Ecuador, and Bolivia

53. Enhancing Multilateral Support for Security Sector Reform:A Mapping Study covering the United Nations, the African Union, the European Union, and the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe

Author:
Vincenza Scherrer and Alba Bescos Pou
Publication Date:
01-2018
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Geneva Centre for Security Sector Governance (DCAF)
Abstract:
Multilateral organizations are playing an important role in shaping the SSR agenda through the development of policy and guidance and by engaging in the provision of a wide range of SSR support on the ground. However, despite their significant engagement in this area, there is no predictability in terms of the type of support that multilateral organizations will take on. While policy frameworks concur that international support should be well coordinated, the support provided by these organizations tends to be compartmentalized in practice. As a result, considerable time is often lost while each organization separately assesses a conflict, maps what others are doing, and agrees on a division of labour. The report presents the findings of a multi-year research project on the approaches of the United Nations (UN), the African Union (AU), the European Union (EU), and the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) to supporting nationally-led SSR processes. The study aims at developing an empirically-based understanding of the roles and potential comparative advantages of these organizations in SSR support, as well as avenues for enhanced cooperation. For this purpose, the study examines the following three categories related to the role of multilateral organizations in SSR support: normative frameworks, institutional capacities, and operational practices. This report was commissioned from DCAF by the Security Sector Reform Unit (SSRU) of the United Nations Department of Peacekeeping Operations (DPKO).
Topic:
Security, Human Rights, Peacekeeping, Reform, and Multilateralism
Political Geography:
Geneva, Africa, Europe, United Nations, European Union, and African Union

54. The UN Security Council: From a 20th Century Relic to Effective Security Governance

Author:
Jakkie Cilliers
Publication Date:
02-2018
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Institute for Development and Peace
Abstract:
The United Nations Security Council lies at the heart of the global security architecture. It was established in 1945 to maintain international peace and security, but reform has been stuck for decades. Beyond a nuclear conflagration and the enduring challenge of interstate conflict, future global security challenges include the impact of climate change, the threat of pandemics, dirty bombs, nuclear terrorism and cybercrime. These risks are exacerbated by the rise of new nationalism in the West with countries such as the USA turning away from multilateralism, eschewing collaboration and accelerating change away from a global system hitherto dominated by the West. At a time of great power transitions, mul- tipolarity without sufficient multilateralism is a dan- gerous trend. Without comprehensive change that includes the end of permanent seats and the veto, the Council is fading into irrelevance. Such reform is possible, but requires a very different approach compared to efforts to find a compromise between different negotiating blocks in New York. Instead, detailed proposals should be agreed upon amongst like-minded states outside of the intergovernmental negotiating process and tabled in the General Assembly as a non-negotiable amendment to the Charter of the United Nations (UN). Even then only the threat from key countries to withdraw coopera- tion from the UN is likely to change things.
Topic:
Security, International Cooperation, United Nations, Multilateralism, and UN Security Council
Political Geography:
Global Focus

55. US tariff measures may boomerang

Author:
Dong Yan
Publication Date:
07-2018
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Abstract:
US President Donald Trump has launched a tariff war not only against China but also against some other economies and threatened to undermine the multilateral trading system. Apart from China, quite a few other economies have also taken countermeasures to Trump's unilateral and protectionist moves. For instance, Russia plans to impose 25-40 percent tariff on US industrial goods, including equipment for road construction, oil and gas, and mining in response to the US tariffs on Russian metals.
Topic:
Multilateralism, Tariffs, Trade Wars, and Donald Trump
Political Geography:
Russia, China, and United States of America

56. Keeping China’s WTO Commitments Clear

Author:
Su Qingyi
Publication Date:
07-2018
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Abstract:
In terms of fulfillment of WTO (World Trade Organization) commitments, all members of the organization should be treated equally. First of all, China’s WTO accession commitments, which were made when the country was admitted to the organization in 2001, were recorded in three documents, Protocol on the Accession of the People’s Republic of China to the WTO and two reports from the working party on the accession of China to the WTO. The two reports specified China’s promises to open up its services market. And the protocol defined the country’s other promises outside the realm of the services market. Second, after years of China’s accession to the WTO, WTO members should be very clear of China’s compliance with its WTO commitments. For questions as to whether China has opened up in compliance with its commitments, whether it met targets on the time table and whether reforms have been carried out in some areas, the results should be clear. Third, since 2006, WTO has been performing a trade policy review on China every two years. Every WTO member can supervise China’s fulfillment of its WTO commitments within the WTO framework. If any have complaints about China, the two sides can solve the problem within the WTO review mechanism. In fact, the WTO’s dispute settlement mechanism can be employed to force China to make readjustments.
Topic:
Treaties and Agreements, World Trade Organization, Economy, and Multilateralism
Political Geography:
China and Asia

57. Adapting International Trade Institutions to New Realities

Author:
Felix Pena
Publication Date:
02-2018
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:
The institutional order governing world trade is going through a critical period. Debate over its future form and design will be a dominant theme on the global agenda for the coming years. The Donald J. Trump administration has questioned the benefits of the multilateral trading order and is pulling the United States back from its traditional leadership role. In December 2017, the Eleventh Ministerial Conference (MC11) of the World Trade Organization (WTO) ended in disappointment with no substantive multilateral achievements. The shift in economic power from the West to the East and the growth of nonstate actors further complicate the search for consensus on international trade rules, leading to a so-called multiplex world. In a multiplex world, actors with different cultural values and relative power inequalities—such as nation-states, international and regional institutions, corporations, and nongovernmental organizations—compete against each other. To ensure a resilient trading system, multilateral trading rules and institutions need to be adapted to these new realities of trade, investment, and the distribution of global power. Unlike the international system as it functioned after World War II, today’s trading system does not reflect the interests of a single power or an alliance of powers with sufficient clout to impose their will on others in a sustained way. This is not a Group of Twenty (G20) or Group of Seven–led world: it is a G-Zero world, with no established lineup of who should be invited to the table where decisions are made. In this vacuum of global leadership it is increasingly difficult to identify who will create the new rules of international competition. Actors pursue their own self-interest, which results in less certainty for the international trade system.
Topic:
International Trade and Finance, Multilateralism, Trade Wars, and WTO
Political Geography:
Global Focus

58. Finland's defence cooperation: The ‘no a priori limits’ approach with Sweden should be a model for other cooperation efforts

Author:
Charly Salonius-Pasternak and Henri Vanahanen
Publication Date:
12-2018
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Finnish Institute of International Affairs
Abstract:
Finland’s efforts to weave a web of bi- and multilateral defence cooperation have developed faster than anticipated. Yet cooperation with Sweden is unique, partially because limits have not been set a priori on what cooperation could entail. Finland should formally adopt this ‘no a priori limits’ approach throughout its other defence cooperation relationships.
Topic:
Defense Policy, International Cooperation, Military Strategy, and Multilateralism
Political Geography:
Europe and Finland

59. The EU and China: Modest Signs of Convergence?

Author:
Gustaaf Geeraets
Publication Date:
12-2018
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
EGMONT - The Royal Institute for International Relations
Abstract:
Against a background in which the United States is increasingly drawing into question its commitments to free trade and the global commons, the challenge for the EU and China is to deal with a global governance system that is evolving from a multilateral system centred around the US into a more diffuse system resting on the three strong trading poles: China, the EU and the US.
Topic:
International Trade and Finance, Governance, European Union, and Multilateralism
Political Geography:
United States, China, Europe, Asia, and North America

60. UK Aid Quality Indicators

Author:
Caitlin McKee, Ian Mitchell, and Arthur Baker
Publication Date:
12-2018
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center for Global Development
Abstract:
This paper discusses the United Kingdom’s foreign aid quality based on an updated assessment of the Quality of Official Development Assistance (QuODA) published by the Center for Global Development. QuODA uses 24 quantitative indicators based on how aid is given, grouped into four themes: maximizing efficiency, fostering institutions, reducing the burden on recipient countries, and transparency and learning. These are based on principles which donor and recipient countries agreed to in a series of high-level meetings on aid effectiveness. We find UK aid quality has decreased from 2012 to 2016 and now ranks 15th out of the 27 countries assessed. The quality of its multilateral aid is relatively strong with significant contributions to EU institutions who score in the top half of multilateral agencies, and well-above the UK’s bilateral aid. We analyse the UK’s bilateral aid in detail, identifying areas of relative strength but also four recommendations for the UK Government to improve aid effectiveness
Topic:
Development, International Cooperation, Foreign Aid, and Multilateralism
Political Geography:
United Kingdom and Europe