WTO及RTA中心圖書館WTO&RTA Center Library

Regulatory cooperation is indispensable for increasing the quality of carbon-related product regulations and standards (CPRS), reducing trade tensions over them, facilitating their alignment, and, eventually, promoting the convergence of different national emission reduction levels towards a universal carbon price. In this article, we explore how trade and trade-related arrangements and institutions can be used to intensify regulatory cooperation on CPRS. We focus on the following questions: when, where, and how does regulatory cooperation on CPRS take place within the international trading system, and what are the ways to strengthen regulatory cooperation on CPRS? While admitting the key role of market forces and the large market factor in the alignment of carbon standards, we argue that this de facto trade-driven alignment requires a steering from state-to-state regulatory cooperation, as well as cooperation of government agencies with private certification schemes in helping producers, especially from developing countries, to comply. Moreover, the potential for more systematic collaboration between the multilateral institutions for climate change and trade should be explored. This could include the establishment of a joint UNFCCC-WTO forum for the exchange of policy-relevant technical and scientific information on key issues surrounding CPRS and consolidation of the relevant database.

The study aimed to determine the antecedents or drivers of the Halal food and beverage trade. The Halal F&B statistics were manually derived by applying the Shariah principle of "presumption of permissibility" and the WTO assumption when assigning HS codes on the specific trade concerns database to determine the approximate value of Halal F&B trade between countries, which is an important contribution of this study. We utilized the gravity model of international trade and the Poisson-Pseudo-Maximum Likelihood (PPML) approach, which is the gravity model's commonly suggested estimator. The examined samples include bilateral trade data from 59 nations (20 OIC members) between 2007 and 2016. The tested determinants are the variables of the economy, distance, level of income, exchange rate, regional trade agreement, common border, common language, colonial relationship, and landlocked commerce. Results indicate that the economic size of trade partners, regional trade agreements, shared borders, and common language significantly positively impact the value of Halal F&B exports. In contrast, distance, exporting nation income, exchange rate, and landlocked trade significantly negatively impact. Meanwhile, it appeared that neither the income level of the importing country nor its colonial relationship had a substantial impact on commerce.

The European Union (EU) is contemplating the adoption of a carbon border adjustment mechanism (CBAM), which would extend its domestic carbon price to emissions that are produced outside its borders but are embodied into its imports of carbon-intensive commodities. In doing so, the EU is testing the boundaries of permissible unilateral action at the interface of international climate and trade law. However, the question of whether the proposed CBAM is compatible with these two multilateral legal regimes is yet to be addressed in an integrated manner. This article seeks to fill this gap in the scholarship and makes two main arguments. First, the CBAM as presently designed does not respect the principle of Common but Differentiated Responsibilities and Respective Capabilities (CBDRRC) and needs to be adjusted through two forms of differential treatment: a full exemption for least-developed countries and Small Island Developing States and the use of CBAM-generated revenue to support decarbonisation efforts in other affected developing countries. Secondly, this CBDRRC-based differentiation should be permissible under WTO law on the grounds that it does not amount to discrimination between countries where the same conditions prevail.

This study examines protests targeting Multilateral Economic Institutions (MEIs), namely the WTO, IMF, and World Bank from 1995 to 2018 across a large sample of countries using data drawn from media reports. We consider conventional social movement arguments regarding domestic and international resources and political opportunities, as well as economic threats, integration into the global economy, and the effects of international lending. Hypotheses are evaluated using negative binomial panel regression models of annual country protest counts. Results are consistent with several arguments. Recessions and high unemployment are associated with the number of anti-MEI protests, and countries that receive large IMF loans also tend to have more protests. Moreover, we observe a globalization of the political landscape itself. International sites, such as the locations of WTO, IMF, and World Bank summits, serve as powerful magnets for protest. Finally, we note a decline in anti-globalization protests in recent years. We suspect that this reflects the weakening of MEIs, which have seen their influence wane amidst diminished enthusiasm for globalization. As the neo-liberal agenda stalls, MEIs lose salience and social movements have shifted their attention elsewhere.

PurposeThis article focuses on whether there is a chance to win a World Trade Organization (WTO) trade dispute at the consultation stage. The study suggests an approach to resolving trade disputes on a bilateral level before involving formal WTO resolution procedures.Design/methodology/approachThe model describes the determinants of the probability of winning a trade dispute. The econometric model estimates two different groups of factors available during the consultation period - macroeconomic factors and the institutional features of the trade dispute, such as the number of third parties. The data includes WTO trade disputes from 1995 to 2014.FindingsThe suggested model predicts the result of trade disputes with a probability of 76.64%. The research proves that institutional factors such as the number of third parties and the subject of the trade dispute influence the probability of winning.Practical implicationsThe results of the study help predict the probability of winning a trade dispute at the consultation stage so that countries can decide whether to pursue a trade dispute.Originality/valueThe research presents several new hypotheses on the results of trade disputes. The authors show that the higher the number of countries involved, the higher the chance of the complainant winning and that if major parties such as the US or the European Union (EU) are involved as third parties, the chance of the complainant winning increases.

In the relationship with Covid-19, tourism is mainly referred as a severely affected socio-economic sphere. Its role as a component of the system of conditions that triggered the pandemic is not given due prominence. In light of this situation, the analysis is guided by the aim of understanding how the tourism massification and the extensive air transport network that it requires, generating connectivity, transits and systemic speed, contributed to the sudden globalization of Sars-cov-2. To this end, data are mobilised from documentary research in different sources: media, sources associated with intergovernmental international institutions, and scientific sources. From these data it is possible to deduce that tourist contexts and their mobility structures are the result of complex more-than-human assemblages in which social, environmental and technological conditions emerge, functioning as powerful structural vectors of rapid transnational diffusion of biocontaminants responsible, in some cases, for pandemic scenarios like the one we have been living in since March 2020.

Trade facilitation is essential to lowering overall trade costs and increasing economic returns on both the multilateral and regional levels. Trade facilitation is also an integral part of trade agreements and has become an important component of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). This paper adopts a time-varying stochastic frontier gravity model and a trade inefficiency model and assigns values to different trade facilitation provisions to construct relevant indicators to assess the impacts of the trade facilitation provisions of the World Trade Organization Trade Facilitation Agreement (WTO TFA) and regional trade agreements (RTAs) on trade efficiency between China and BRI countries, as well as on the current conditions and challenges of fresh agricultural product trade between China and countries of the BRI, using data from 2011 to 2020. The results show that the size of domestic markets and population positively affect agricultural trade between China and BRI countries, while geographical distance has a negative impact on their scale of trade. Moreover, this study finds that the obligations set out in trade facilitation provisions of RTAs play an important role in improving trade efficiency, and among these trade facilitation obligations improving the legal provisions of "information transparency", "customs cooperation" and "advance ruling" can significantly improve trade efficiency, however, some measures relating to "formalities" could potentially constitute barriers to trade. This study innovatively carried out an analysis of the impact of trade facilitation provisions on agricultural trade flows and efficiency from the perspectives of international trade law and economics and provides new policy recommendations for BRI countries to support agricultural trade.

Since China joined the World Trade Organization (WTO) in 2002, the number of technical barriers to trade (TBT) notifications has increased rapidly. This study investigates the impact of China's imposition of TBTs on the exports of Korean manufacturing-industry from 2002 to 2014. We focus on the following aspects: exports in terms of value-added, a comparison of exports of final goods with exports of intermediate goods, and specific trade concerns (STCs). Our findings are as follows. First, China's TBTs have an insignificant impact on Korean manufacturing exports to China when we investigate the whole manufacturing industry sector. Second, as a result of analyzing final goods and intermediate goods separately, we do not find a significant effect of TBTs on the export of intermediate goods, whereas they have negative effects on the export of final goods. This is in line with our expectations that China does not want to restrict the import of intermediate goods. Third, further analysis of the relationship between exports and TBT STCs is conducted. However, we find no additional negative effect of TBT STCs on exports. Fourth, the impact of TBTs on exports in value-added terms does not seem to differ from the impact on total gross exports.

PurposeParetic side collisions frequently occur in stroke patients, especially while walking through narrow spaces. We determined whether training for walking through an opening (T-WTO) while entering from the paretic side would improve collision avoidance behavior and prevent falls after 6 months.Materials and MethodsThirty-eight adults with moderate-to-mild hemiparetic gait after stroke who were hospitalized in a rehabilitation setting were randomly allocated to the T-WTO (n = 20) or regular rehabilitation (R-Control; n = 18) program. Both groups received five sessions of 40 min per week, for three weeks total. T-WTO included walking through openings of various widths while rotating with the paretic side in front, and R-Control involved normal walking without body rotation. Obstacle avoidance ability, 10-m walking test, timed Up and Go test, Berg Balance Scale, Activities-specific Balance Confidence, the perceptual judgment of passability, and fall incidence were assessed.ResultsCollision rate and time to passage of the opening in obstacle avoidance task significantly improved in the T-WTO group compared with those in the R-Control group. Contrast, T-WTO did not lead to significant improvements in other outcomes.ConclusionsT-WTO improved efficiency and safety in managing subacute stroke patients. Such training could improve patient outcomes/safety because of the paretic body side during walking.

Domestic Investment Laws (DILs), a prominent tool of contemporary unilateral International Economic Law (IEL) in the context of the Liberal International Order (LIO), consistently provide for investment incentives as a key aspect of domestic industrial policies geared to influence investment location decisions. The various types of investment incentives include fiscal measures to attract investment, direct subsidies, and other regulatory measures aimed at creating favorable administrative and regulatory conditions for investment. This article analyzes how the provisions of the World Trade Organization (WTO) Agreements contain basic disciplines and set limitations for the distortive effects of investment incentives. It is argued that the relevance of WTO law for domestic investment incentives should not be under-stated; rather, DILs providing investment incentives should be treated as a limited exception to the ongoing move from international to domestic in the era of the LIO.