WTO及RTA中心圖書館WTO&RTA Center Library

This essay examines the likelihood of a long-term relationship between nuclear energy and CO2 emissions as well as nuclear energy and per capita GDP. For this, we used a panel cointegration, panel FMOLS, and panel DOLS, as well as the panel Granger causality test on a sample of four SAARC countries (Bangladesh, India, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka) during the years 1980-2017. We identified unidirectional causation between nuclear energy and per capita GDP in the output equation. Long-term analysis, on the other hand, reveals feedback causation between nuclear energy and economic growth. The short-run results of the environmental equation reveal feedback causation between GDP and environmental pressure. Furthermore, the findings reveal one-way causation between nuclear energy and environmental pressure. Additionally, a long-term examination reveals feedback causation between environmental quality and wealth, as well as between nuclear energy and the environment. Given the constant structural changes, developing a proper trade-off between the advantages and costs of using nuclear energy to assure the economy's long-term growth and ecological well-being is a tough task.

As we all know, effective resource management in complex and changeable networks is still a very important issue in the processing of cloud computer systems. Based on fuzzy programming theory, this paper studies cloud computing fuzzy and cloud resource scheduling problems under uncertain conditions. In order to show the execution time of the task, this paper also established a more practical cloud resource management model, and proposed a more complete planning algorithm based on the existing algorithm. At the same time, this article also introduces a virtual sound signal processing system. It uses a microphone to collect the measured sound signal, uses a computer to obtain the A/D and D/A conversion sound card, performs time-domain analysis and frequency analysis of the audio signal, suppresses whistle and plays recordings. China's accession to the WTO has brought extensive opportunities and new challenges to the development of education. The education market is in the process of developing internationally. The quality of higher education and educated students must be placed on an international competition platform to compete, and it must also conform to the general trend of the times. In addition, the country should also vigorously develop innovative education and train high-quality talents for socialist construction. This is also one of the key issues of higher education. In the end, this article starts with the research and exploration of the nature of quality, through the research of the quality system and structure of virtual audio design, puts forward the various qualities of the system with talents, puts forward a series of opinions, and establishes the corresponding mathematical model.

In the past, the Chinese government mainly focused on the issue of national security and thus created a security assessment mechanism for cross-border data flows (CBDFs) with broad coverage. It is about time for China to reconsider its data governance regime based on a balanced approach. Various initiatives to facilitate CBDF have thus been started in so-called pilot free trade zones (FTZs) and special administrative regions (SARs). The good practice in FTZs would help formulate nationwide rules. With regard to SARs, once the special CBDF arrangements between the Chinese mainland and Hong Kong and Macao are concluded, the latter ones could become data centre hubs for the Greater Bay Area as a pilot, and potentially for the entire China in the long run. The reform to facilitate CBDF should be carefully implemented in a manner not favouring domestic companies. Otherwise, it would be inconsistent with the non-discriminatory conditions under the RCEP, as the first international agreement of China that contains provisions to explicitly facilitate CBDF for commercial purposes. Moreover, the negotiations on the accession of the CPTPP and the DEPA would incentivize China to accelerate the pace of reform. From an international perspective, actively engaging China in CBDF negotiations at the regional level would contribute to achieve global CBDF standards through, for instance, the e-commerce negotiations at the WTO.

The paper highlights the increased international trade and discussion in recent years of digital currencies, also known as virtual currencies or cryptocurrencies, including the bilateral trade coin bitcoin (BTC). Scholars have emphasised the need to consider different preconditions, focusing primarily on domestic perspectives of payment intermediation within individual countries. The inclusion of digital currencies in global trade is motivated by the recognition that time is playing an increasingly important role in trade dynamics. Scholars have presented arguments on the potential impact of CBDCs (central bank digital currencies), highlighting their ability to facilitate secure and seamless payment transactions in line with the primary objective of central banks. Conversely, sceptics argue that the mere issuance of CBDCs can potentially undermine the stability of the financial system. High interest rates tend to reduce the amount of cash in circulation. Therefore, higher interest rates do not stimulate digital currencies as investors seek to keep their funds tied up rather than floating. The purpose of this research is to consider the concept of digital currencies in global trade, reflecting the increasing importance of time in trade. Older generations have been reluctant to embrace this new way of doing business, and many questions have arisen. For example, digital currencies compete with traditional currencies, making government control difficult. There are also issues of trust, credibility, volatility, use across countries, use across time zones, trading time, uncertainty, disruption to current centralised economic systems, lender of last resort in the form of a central bank, as well as distance and culture in international trade. The methodology used is the well-known and classic SWOT analysis, which provides tools for analysing the pros and cons of digital currencies. It sheds light on the advantages and disadvantages of digital currencies, including strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats. The results vary depending on the weight of the four measures provided. The practical implications are that it is important to be aware of the measured factors when trading: Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats. Finally, it is believed that the value/originality of the research sheds light on issues that people need to be aware of when considering entering into a transaction using some form of digital currency.

The conventional wisdom is that human rights have long been off the negotiating agenda at the World Trade Organization (WTO). The failed attempt by Northern states to include a 'social clause' in WTO rules during the late 1990s and early 2000s is often cited as having foreclosed bringing human rights to bear in multilateral trade negotiations. This article challenges this traditional view, demonstrating that states are mobilizing human rights at the WTO to shape current global trade rulemaking. Moreover, in sharp contrast to the prevailing assumption that developed countries are the primary champions of human rights in the trade regime and developing countries the opponents, I show that developing countries have in fact become key protagonists in marshalling human rights at the WTO. To illustrate these claims, I examine how developing countries mobilize human rights norms, principles and discourse to shape global trade rulemaking in two of the most contentious issues in recent WTO negotiations: The use of public food stockholding for food security purposes and a TRIPS waiver to ensure access to COVID-19 vaccines.

We examine international regulatory agreements that are negotiated under lobbying pressures from producer groups. The way in which lobbying influences the cooperative setting of regulatory policies, as well as the welfare impacts of international agreements, depend cru-cially on whether the interests of producers in different countries are aligned or in conflict. The former situation tends to occur for prod-uct standards, while the latter tends to occur for process standards. We find that, if producer lobbies are strong enough, agreements on product standards lead to excessive deregulation and decrease wel-fare, while agreements on process standards tighten regulations and enhance welfare. (JEL F13, F14, F15, L15, L51)

This article discusses the emergence and contours of farmers' rights to save, use, exchange and sell farm-saved seeds and other propagating materials, including from protected plant varieties, enshrined in Article 9 of the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture (ITPGRFA) to modulate the exclusive rights of patent and plant variety certificate holders. Second, the article raises the challenges of transposing farmers' rights to seed practices into national legislation to make these rights effective and enforceable. Indeed, when transposing these rights, World Trade Organization (WTO) member states must act within the scope of Article 27:3(b) of the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS Agreement), which establishes international obligations for the protection of plant varieties through intellectual property rights. Finally, this paper argues that the adoption of sui generis plant variety protection legislation, as enshrined in both Article 27.3(b) of the TRIPS Agreement and Article 9 of the ITPGRFA, is a means of ensuring the coexistence at the national level of the international regime of farmers' rights and the international regime of intellectual property rights on plant varieties, as well as a solution to recognize the plurality of plant variety breeding methods and practices.

Since the establishment of the World Trade Organization (WTO) also the number of Regional Trade Agreements (RTAs) has risen strongly, from less than 50 in 1995 to more than 350 in 2022. Increasingly overlapping RTAs imply challenges and can raise trade costs associated with the management of multiple trade rules and regulatory standards. At the same time, countries that are connected through several RTAs could be strongly integrated and their regulatory approaches well-aligned, thus reducing trade costs among them. This paper looks at the parallels in the evolution of agricultural trade and RTAs and asks how the layering of RTAs is associated with agricultural trade among their signatories and with countries outside the RTAs. Based on network measures and correlations we identify common patterns in the evolution of RTAs globally and agricultural trade of a balanced panel of 190 countries in the years 1995, 2007, 2013 and 2019. We also provide first indication on the interaction of over-lapping RTAs and agricultural trade. On global average, our findings hint at a positive association between RTA and agricultural trade connectivity and suggest that this relationship could be more pronounced at the extensive margin of trade and for countries that share several RTAs, possibly indicating a stronger political integration among these countries.

The close integration of the world economy and global interdependence has introduced an opportunity for a foreign nation to interfere in the sovereign choices of a state through trade and investment restrictions. Economic coercion has been on an upward spiral and is painfully felt around the globe. The EU's Anti-Coercion Instrument is an attempt to address this. Originally designed as an instrument to address the restrictive measures adopted by the Trump administra-tion, the Instrument turned out to be a strong tool by which to respond to China's economic coercion, stemming from Vilnius' decision to accept Taiwan's representative office. The European Commission tried to balance legality and effectiveness and decided to limit the definitional scope of economic coercion to that targeting the Union or its Member States, but the legality and effectiveness of the Proposed Regulation are not unproblematic. In an era in which trade is being weaponized, normative power or civilian power does not help the EU to advance. The critical point here is how the EU can present a credible threat and withstand harm, as the pain from economic harm will first be felt by European economic operators and subsequently by European leaders.

The aim of this article is to analyze theoretically the relationship between rents and capitalist competition. The central hypothesis is that the production of rents is a process endogenous to capitalist competition and expands itself throughout various dimensions of economic life. To this end, the different conceptions of rents (classical, neoclassical and Schumpeterian) will be reviewed, and an institutionalist perspective on rents as income from institutionally-created scarce assets will be presented. To make this point, the case of the TRIPS agreement in the WTO will be analyzed as an example of the relationship between capitalist markets and institutional creation of scarcity from which patent rents emerge. Finally, this view of rents will be used to provide a theoretical analysis of how neoliberalism endogenously deepens current rents and creates new ones.