Saturday, June 28, 2014

White Industries: The appropriate remedy for delay

Srikar – as you know, I am delighted that our paths have re-crossed after so long.  Needless to say, I am also grateful for this opportunity to exchange ideas with you and others on your blog.  

My first blog post will not deal with international trade law but with the other major branch of international economic law – international investment law.  The topic I will consider is the remedy granted by the Tribunal in White Industries v The Republic of India.  
Background
As is well-known, White Industries was the first award rendered in a proceeding brought against India under a bilateral investment treaty (or “BIT”).  The treaty invoked by the Investor was the 1999 Australia-India BIT.
The Investor was successful.  India was found to be in breach of the BIT because of delays that the Investor encountered in the Indian courts.  Various Indian court proceedings had been initiated regarding the enforcement of an international arbitral award (“the ICC Award”) against the Investor's Indian counterparty - Coal India.  Coal India is a PSU and it was resisting enforcement of the ICC Award in the Indian courts. 
The Tribunal found a breach of an “effective means clause” which imposed a duty on India to “provide effective means of asserting claims and enforcing rights with respect to investments”.  The Tribunal interpreted that clause as providing that an “undue delay” in resolving an investor’s claim by local courts would amount to a breach.  In doing so it followed the interpretation of a similar clause in the Chevron-Texaco v Ecuador case (the “TexPet case in short). 
On the facts, the Tribunal made a finding that a nine-year delay in resolving set aside proceedings initiated before the Calcutta High Court amounted to a breach.  Five years of that nine-year delay were attributable to a pending appeal before the Indian Supreme Court and the Tribunal ruled that that delay also amounted to a separate breach. 
The finding on liability has been the subject of scholarly commentary and criticism: see, among others, Sumeet Kachwaha’s article in Arbitration International (2013, Vol 29, p. 275) and Jessica Wirth’s broader note on the effective means standard in the Columbia Journal of Transnational Law (2014, Vol 52, p.325). 
My focus in this post is not on liability but on the Tribunal’s next step: how it remedied the breach that it identified.
The remedy granted in White Industries
The Investor was awarded monetary compensation of AUS$ 4,085,180 (plus post-award interest at 8% per annum).  That sum represents the amounts that were payable under the ICC Award. 
In broad terms, the Tribunal decided that the appropriate remedy for delay was to predict the result that the Indian courts would reach in the ongoing local proceedings and give the Investor the benefit of that result immediately, i.e., without any further delay.  In doing so the arbitral tribunal effectively sat as an Indian court.
In keeping with this approach, it assessed four objections to the enforcement of the ICC Award that had been raised by Coal India (one hopes that additional objections were not ignored by the Tribunal).  It decided that none of them had merit and concluded that the ICC Award would have been held to be enforceable by an Indian court.
It then ordered the Government of India to pay the Investor the amount owed to it under the ICC Award as this would place the Investor in the position that it would have occupied if the Indian court proceedings had: (1) concluded without delay and (2) reached the substantive result that the Tribunal predicted they would reach. 
It is significant that this payment had to be made by the Government of India and not Coal India (which is a legally distinct entity whose conduct the Tribunal found could not be attributed to the Government of India: see Award, para. 8.1.21). 
The path not taken 
The Tribunal’s approach calls for three comments and one suggestion. 
First, it is not obvious that the delays encountered in the Indian courts caused any financial loss to the Investor.  The Investor was granted post-award interest by the ICC tribunal at the rate of 8% – the entire point of such an award is to compensate an award-creditor for delays in paying the award.    As long as the interest rate was set appropriately and as long as the Indian courts would give effect to the award of post-award interest (and there were no suggestions to the contrary by the Investor) that should have been adequate to compensate for any undue delay on account of proceedings before the Calcutta High Court and/or the Supreme Court.  So, arguably, there was no genuine loss to compensate here.
Second, the claim for compensation (and the Tribunal’s award) is built on a prediction about the outcome of future Indian court proceedings.  That prediction is inherently uncertain.  The Tribunal could have held that claims for damages that rest on predictions about the outcome of litigation will be treated as speculative and disallowed.  This is the position that the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) has adopted in cases brought under Article 6 of the European Convention of Human Rights (which also regulates the length of proceedings).  The ECHR has consistently held that it cannot speculate on the outcome of legal proceedings for the purposes of awarding compensation.  See Incal v Turkey, para. 82; Wettstein v Switzerland, para. 53; Bayrak v Germany, para. 38.  In sharp contrast, the Tribunal in White Industries showed no hesitation at all in speculating about the outcome of Indian court proceedings.  However, it did indicate that the parties had consented to its approach (see Award, para. 14.2.2) and one can also see considerable force in the position that a tribunal must resolve questions about how a court would rule just as it must resolve questions about what an investor’s future market share will be.  Arguably, these are all hypotheses about future events which a tribunal must assess in order to calculate damages.   Nevertheless, the failing of the Tribunal in White Industries is that it did not justify the standard that it applied while making predictions about the outcome of the Indian court proceedings.  India argued that the Investor needed to show that Coal India’s opposition to enforcement and its set aside application had “no prospects of success” (Award, para. 14.2.1), i.e., that the Investor needed to show that a positive legal outcome was virtually certain.  But the Tribunal did not deal with that contention or explain its approach in any detail.  Indeed, the indications are that it placed the burden on India to show that the Investor would not succeed in the domestic proceedings (which it sought to justify by reference to the New York Convention (which was not part of the applicable law) and Indian law (without specific explanation)). 
Third, in usurping the role of the Indian courts, the Tribunal also arguably compromised the due process rights of a third party – Coal India.  It effectively decided on the validity of Coal India’s objections to enforcement without the participation of Coal India.  Of course, one may respond that Coal India did not lose anything – to the contrary it gained because the Government of India was forced to pay the ICC Award that it would have been required to pay.  That only raises further questions (which have no answer in the Award) such as whether the Investor could maintain its claim under the ICC Award against Coal India (leading to a situation of potential double recovery), whether the Government of India could recover the amount that it paid to the Investor from Coal India and, if not, whether an outcome where the Indian taxpayers pay foreign investors but cannot claim restitution from the party bearing the true liability is an altogether fair one.  These concerns may seem theoretical because Coal India is a PSU (however, it is not a wholly-owned PSU) but they will have much greater resonance in cases where the opponent of a foreign investor in the Indian courts is a private party.     
Finally, my (tentative) suggestion is that if the Tribunal was determined to grant relief (notwithstanding the existence of an order for post-award interest) it should have considered a novel remedy: ordering India to resolve the proceedings within a short period (say 6 months) with a qualification that if India failed to comply within that period the Tribunal would go on to make predictions about the outcome of pending proceedings and award damages.   This remedy recognises the reality that the Indian courts were progressing with their consideration of the Investor’s claims (the Supreme Court actually issued its judgement on the narrow question of jurisdiction less than a year later) and gives India a final opportunity to rectify the concrete problem faced by the Investor.  It is less intrusive (in that it potentially avoids a situation where the Tribunal substitutes itself for an Indian court) and limits the risk that one or the other of the litigants in the Indian courts may be unjustly enriched.  While investor-state tribunals have been historically reluctant to grant conduct-based remedies and conditional remedies there is no fundamental bar in public international law to their grant – indeed a broadly analogous remedy is given as a matter of course by WTO panels. 
Before closing it is worth considering the potential implications of the White Industries ruling. 
The effective means clause which was considered in White Industries can be imported into any Indian BIT (as they are all likely to have MFN clauses).  And that clause would apply to any proceeding in an Indian court which involves claims/rights “with respect to” foreign investments protected under a BIT (not just proceedings between a foreign investor and the Government of India).  So proceedings between two private entities, for instance between a foreign investor and a local Indian joint venture partner, could also be regulated by the effective means clause.  As a result, delays in a broad range of judicial proceedings do have the potential to trigger the liability of the Government of India. 
For this reason, the approach to remedies followed in White Industries (and prior to that in TexPet) may well be of consequence in the future.     

Wednesday, June 18, 2014

Friday, May 23, 2014

Who actually won and what will the measures to comply be?

Preliminary reactions coming in from the parties to the EU Seals dispute:

EU
"The WTO confirmed the EU's right to ban seal products on moral grounds related to animal welfare and the way the seals are killed. It did, however, criticise the way the exception for Inuit hunts has been designed and implemented. 
The European Commission will review the findings on these exceptions to the ban and consider options for implementation. Overall, the Commission welcomes today's ruling as it upholds the ban imposed in reaction to genuine concerns of EU citizens."
“We are pleased that today’s decision by the WTO Appellate Body confirms what we have said all along, namely that the EU’s seal regime is arbitrarily and unjustifiably applied and is therefore inconsistent with the EU’s obligations. The WTO Appellate Body confirmed that the EU measure violates its international obligations and has ordered the EU to bring itself into compliance. We are currently reviewing the practical impact of the decision on the Atlantic and northern seal harvests.
Makes one wonder who actually won and what would the measures taken to comply with the decision be?

Compliance - the stage shifts in the EU Seals case

The EU Seal Products ban decision is out. You can find it here on the WTO website. Several brilliant expositions of the decisions in the IELP blog here.

Dissecting the decision in lay person's language it came to the conclusion that the EU ban on Seal products was justified under the "public morals" exception under Article XX(a) GATT. However, the exception given to Inuit communities of Greenland does not meet the requirements of the chapeau of Article XX. Hence, the Appellate Body recommended that the DSB request the European Union to bring its measure, found in this Report, and in the Canada Panel Report as modified by this Report, to be inconsistent with the GATT 1994, into conformity with its obligations under that Agreement. 

The focus now shifts to compliance. Apart from the "reasonable time" required, the issue would be what would amount to compliance of the AB decision? Removing the Inuit exception for Greenland or clarifying the exception itself?

Compliance is as big as the dispute itself!

Thursday, May 22, 2014

IPRs under the TPP Agreement

Negotiations on the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement are shrouded in secrecy. A report for UNITAID (hosted and administered by the WHO), presents an interesting assessment of ‘leaked’ provisions from TPP’s ambitious IPR agenda: http://www.unitaid.eu/images/marketdynamics/publications/TPPA-Report_Final.pdf

The report confirms that the TPP IPR chapter essentially consolidates and enhances the reach of TRIPS-plus provisions. It further suggests that TPP’s wide-reaching provisions on patents, by tilting the scales both in terms of substance and procedure in favour of patent applicants, may pose a threat to addressing issues relating to public health.

India has so far successfully resisted TRIPS-plus approaches under its Free Trade Agreements. The UNITAID report could be a useful tool to enhance domestic preparedness to understand and deal with such provisions.


Waiting for the Seals decision

For those waiting for the Seal dispute decision at the WTO, this piece of news in the Toronto Sun may interest you - Are lobsters next it asks?
"If the European Union is allowed to ban seal imports over "public morality", Environment Minister Leona Agluqqak worries something as pedestrian as lobster fishing might be next on its hit list.
Just days before the World Trade Organization is set to release its final ruling on the EU's seal ban, Agluqqak said the ban is a "slippery slope" and "very dangerous, globally." 
Last year, the WTO upheld the EU's ban by citing a controversial "public morality" clause.Last December, the WTO ruled that although the EU's ban on seal products did indeed break some trade rules, the ban was justified on the grounds of this "public morality" clause — which does not have to be shown to be justified, according to the WTO's rules. 
"It opens up the door for someone to come say: 'We don't like how you kill the lobster and on my moral grounds I'm now going to appeal,'" she said."
Article XX GATT defences and a slippery slope - that sounds familiar.

Monday, May 19, 2014

The flights take off once again - Subsidies dispute back into action

I thought the Boeing-Airbus Subsidies dispute at the WTO had reached the final stages of issues of compliance. 

I have blogged about the dispute here, here and here. But if Reuters is to be believed there is some fresh ammunition for the EU against alleged subsidies that US is giving to Boeing for its latest aircraft.
"The European Union is considering raising the pressure on the United States in the world's largest trade dispute by challenging tax breaks that encouraged planemaker Boeing (BA.N) to keep production of its latest jet in Washington state, people familiar with the matter said on Friday. 
The potential move would open a tense new phase in the decade-old formal trade dispute over aircraft industry aid, as Brussels and Washington argue about whether they have complied with rulings by the World Trade Organization, which in turn could set the tone for sanctions. 
Both the EU and United States claimed victory when the WTO ruled between 2010 and 2012 that billions of dollars of support for Boeing and European rival Airbus (AIR.PA), in a pair of cases spanning thousands of pages but lacking a final resolution."
The two subsidy cases highlight the role played by "Subsidies" in supporting local industry, the complexity of dispute settlement process at the WTO, the issue of compliance of decisions at the WTO as well as the efficacy of the process itself.

Over to the Article 21.5 compliance process to assess the new claim?

Friday, May 16, 2014

Seals, public morality and public opinion

We are all familiar with the EU Seal case at the WTO. One of the main pivots around which the case revolves at the dispute settlement proceeding is the applicability of Article XX GATT which deals with General Exceptions. More specifically it is the "public morals" clause which does not prevent States from adopting or enforcing any measures "necessary to protect public morals". I have blogged about it earlier herehere and here.

Came across this report of a survey conducted in Europe on what Europeans think about the seal trade ban using the public morals clause. The study titled "European Opinion on Animal Use and Trade" came to one of these conclusions:

• 75% of respondents saw the use of animals as acceptable, so long it is done in a way that protects animal welfare and sustainability of the resource   
• Half of respondents (50%) agreed that a country or group of countries should not be able to ban a commercial product from being imported based on moral grounds unless the evidence used is fact-based and agreed upon by a credible independent third-party organization.  
 • A majority of respondents (57%) agreed that if the EU’s ban on the import and sale of seal products is allowed to stand it could set a dangerous precedent for other animal products or natural resources   
• A majority of respondents felt that seal hunting was acceptable under in some circumstances compared with a third (33%) who felt that no form of seal hunting is acceptable.  
 • There was less division when it come to opinions about wild boar hunting: 82% of respondents supported wild boar hunting in some capacity while 14% were completely opposed. 
Of course, people will challenge the timing and veracity of this data study. But interesting to evaluate how such "evidences" of public opinion can influence the debate on what is "public morality". 

Also was quite interesting to note the significant difference between attitude towards seals vs a vis wild boars.

Tuesday, May 13, 2014

Another one bite's the dust!

I am thrilled to welcome another accomplished contributor to the blog - Thomas Sebastian.

Looking forward to some interesting posts now...

Friday, May 2, 2014

A GATS dispute after a long time

News of a WTO dispute concerning General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) after a very long time trickled in with Russia seeking consultation with EU on the "Third Energy Package".  More on that here.
"The measures concern the production, supply and transmission of natural gas or electricity, the alleged discriminatory certification requirements in relation to third countries in this sector and the requirement in respect of granting access to natural gas and electricity network capacity by transmission service operators. 
According to the Russian Federation, these measures are inconsistent with a number of obligations and specific commitments of the European Union and constitute an infringement of these obligations and commitments.
The inconsistencies alleged by Russia refer to the GATS (General Agreement on Trade in Services), the Agreement on Subsidies and Countervailing Measures and the Agreement Establishing the WTO."
Russia, being a new member of the WTO, seems to be initiating its forays into dispute settlement. The dispute being one relating to EU's commitments under GATS caught my attention. There are very few GATS disputes as compared to the other WTO Agreements.

Some chance of GATS jurisprudence evolving?

Wednesday, April 23, 2014

Trade Infographics at its best

Thought I would share some trade infographics at its best courtesy this report by Deloitte University Press titled " A New View of International Trade". 

Data and visuals do have a powerful way of depicting a message as clearly shown in these infographics. They are self-explanatory. Have a look.

Featured Image


Figure 1



Figure 7

More contributors to Tread the Middle Path!

Welcome Prabhash Ranjan - hope to see more of you here!

Shailja Singh also joins in - Welcome!

More the merrier - Tread the Middle Path gets more expert contributors joining

Three more experts in international trade law have joined the blog. 

Welcoming Anil B. Suraj to the blog!

Moushami Joshi, its great to see you as a contributor here.

And the "Unknown" contributor is James Nedumpara. We will fix that profile soon!

The blog now gets more exciting. Looking forward to more prolific contributors to join.

Monday, April 21, 2014

Tread the Middle Path - Takes a New Path

It has been over four years since Tread the Middle Path was started - a blog to be an informal, academic forum to discuss issues of international trade law, especially WTO law. The journey has been enriching and a learning experience.

Time has come to have more contributors and enrich it further. In the coming days, Tread the Middle Path will have more contributors and contributions from international trade law experts.

Contributors will be writing in their personal capacity and the views expressed will be only academic in nature to stimulate discussion on various aspects of international trade law.

I welcome Anuradha to the blog! Many more to follow.

Wednesday, April 16, 2014

Domestic policy space, GVCs and some questions

I have often written on  the issue of domestic policy space and international trade law obligations in this blog piece. The issue essentially is whether countries, especially developing and least developed countries,  have sufficient domestic policy space (flexibility) to undertake industrial or other policies and still not fall foul of the international trade regime? Do trade rules restrict countries sovereign right to undertake certain policies that they see as essential to promote national socio-economic development? Is there a uniform prescription for development or do trade rules provide for that space to couner the "one-size-fits all" answer.

To find this debate resonate in a piece on Global Value Chains (GVCs) caught my attention. A piece in the VoxEU titled "Industrial Policy and developmental space: The missing piece in the GVCs debate" highlighted the possibility of exercising this domestic policy space in engaging with GVCs. We all know the critique of the narrative of GVCs being good for all and requiring liberalisation of goods and services sectors as a pre-requisite. All countries may not benefit equally from GVCs. This piece touched on what could be an alternative narrative. 
GVCs seem to be seen as a far-reaching analytical tool and as a mandatory topic in the debates that will be held in the different international economic fora in the next years. However, efforts made so far from the southern hemisphere and, in particular, from Latin America, appear to be insufficient to carry out a critical analysis of the contributions that international think tanks and academics are making. 
If we are willing to reject the linear proposal stating that the path to successfully integrate into GVCs depends almost exclusively on trade and investment liberalisation, then we should map the concrete examples of public policies that have been proposed to create the right incentives for national companies to upgrade and determine how accessible these proposals are for developing countries, which usually have budget and normative constraints that limit their room for manoeuvre.
However, is there a clear alternative? Do we have workable models of selective engagement with GVCs as per national needs? How does this play by WTO rules? How can domestic policy space be exercised? What are the limits? Apart from domestic constraints what are the international law constraints?


Saturday, April 12, 2014

Investor State Dispute Settlement - Things heating up?

I usually do not write about investment issues. That is not my forte. However, have been coming across a lot of pieces on the issue of Investor State Dispute Settlement (ISDS) that caught my attention. The ISDS provision in an investment agreement essentially permits private investors to initiate a dispute against the State where it has invested in cases of alleged violations of the State's obligations under the investment treaty.

The IELP blog carried this piece on the latest Australian FTA with Japan that apparently does not have an ISDS provision. The recent example of this FTA establishes that the issue is not resolved and will continue to arise in international negotiations. The pros and cons of having ISDS provisions have been debated ad naseum. Two pieces on varying positions are an interesting read.

This piece called "Profiting from Injustice" essentially argues against having provisions of ISDS due a variety of reason including that it is fuelled by law firms, arbitrators and financiers and is essentially not neutral. 

Countering the above premise, a detailed piece in the Harvard Journal of International Law argues against the "re-statification" of investment state disputes essentially arguing in favour of the existing ISDS provisions.

A whole lot of literature, interests and impacts. Issues about what constitutes "neutrality" itself? is there a pro-investor or pro-state bias? What trend would coming bilateral, plurilateral agreements follow? Is there a middle ground?

Thursday, March 27, 2014

China Rare Earth Panel report out

The China Rare Earth panel report is out and is found here. I had blogged about it in 2012 when the panel was set up here.  
"In respect of findings concerning export duties and export quotas on various forms of rare earths, tungsten, and molybdenum, and restrictions on the trading rights of enterprises exporting rare earths and molybdenum, the Panel has found that the series of measures have operated to impose export duties and export quotas on various forms of rare earths, tungsten, and molybdenum, and restrictions on the trading rights of enterprises exporting rare earths and molybdenum (i.e. the prior export experience requirement, the export performance requirement, and the minimum registered capital requirement), that are inconsistent with China's WTO obligations. The Panel, therefore, recommends that the Dispute Settlement Body requests China to bring its measures into conformity with its WTO obligations such that the series of measures does not operate to bring about a WTO-inconsistent result."
Haven't read the voluminous Panel report of more than 200 pages. Many interesting questions including on the applicability of General Exceptions to obligations under the Accession Protocol of China. WHat impact would this have on other similar measures?

Will this lead to an appeal, compliance or status quo? We will have to wait and see...

Friday, March 21, 2014

More Appeals in the WTO

As per the annual report of the Appellate Body of the WTO, there is more work in store for the Appellate Body in 2014. 

And this is why...
"According to the Legal Affairs Division and the Rules Division, a large number of panels will continue to be active for the foreseeable future. Twenty-seven requests for consultations were received in 2012, the highest number since 2002. This led to the establishment of 11 panels in 2012, the highest number in five years. There are currently seven panels in composition, and six more panel requests are pending before the DSB.Third party participation continues to be high.Four new requests for consultations have been received in 2013, and four panels have already been established this year covering five disputes. Significantly, the compliance proceedings in the aircraft subsidy disputes between the United States and the European Union are also presently under way. Thus, a large number of panel proceedings are currently in progress or about to begin. Assuming: (1) that panel proceedings take, on average, one year from the time of 
establishment of the panel; (2) that the compliance panel proceedings in the aircraft subsidy disputes will take 1.5-2 years; and (3) that, based on the consistent practice of WTO Members involved in disputes since 1996, roughly two-thirds of all panel reports circulated will be appealed the Appellate Body can expect to receive up to a dozen appeals towards the end of 2013 and in 2014. Such an increase in the number of appeals, on top of the increased complexity and size of the average appeal, is likely to exacerbate the challenges confronting the WTO dispute settlement system in the near future."
More disputes at the WTO, more appeals, more international rule making, more predictability and more compliance? 

Tuesday, March 18, 2014

It's the question of national interest again...

Krugman recently wrote about the TPP being no big deal in the NYT. An interesting aspect of that piece was relating to what constitutes "national interest" that I allude to in this blog. Talking about intellectual property rights rules in the trade agreement, it said:

"Now, the corporations benefiting from enhanced control over intellectual property would often be American. But this doesn’t mean that the T.P.P. is in our national interest. What’s good for Big Pharma is by no means always good for America."
What is "national interest" then? What is good for business can sometimes be not good for the country of the business corporation. National interest could well be larger public interest? Consumer interest? Or just plain "public interest"?

Countering Krugman's analysis generally and also specifically on the "national interest" plank, a VoxEU piece argues:
"After dismissing the case for stronger intellectual property protection in the TPP, Krugman writes with a flourish, “What’s good for Big Pharma is by no means always good for America.” Not even the Pharmaceutical Manufacturers Association would claim that its interests always coincide with US interests. 
But what about the general coincidence of interests? America’s competitive strength resides in innovation. Innovation costs lots of money; not surprisingly, some 60% of the value of US shares – or about $14 trillion in 2013 – represents the capital value of ideas, not tangible property.1 With this amount at stake, protection of intellectual property is clearly in the US national interest. From a global perspective, it’s worth asking how future innovation will be financed if good ideas – embodied in software, entertainment, electronics, and yes, pharmaceuticals – can be freely appropriated by rival firms based in foreign countries?"
An interesting debate on what constitutes "national interest" - what constitutes it, who are it's recipients and how should it be protected? I guess all trade deals will face this question. The issue is how the interests are balanced, who balances them and whose interests ultimately prevail. 




Wednesday, March 12, 2014

Dispute settlement - Contrasting yet similar experiences

A recent blogpost in the IELP blog got me thinking - Two contrasting yet similarly placed experiences with dispute settlement in the WTO

- Switzerland's role in dispute settlement 

- African countries role in dispute settlement

While the motivations and reasons for non-participation may be varied, it is interesting to see contrasting profiles having a similar engagement with the WTO's crown jewel.

Monday, March 3, 2014

Taking disputes to their logical end - Seeking retaliation in WTO disputes

This piece on "retaliation" in trade disputes in the WTO is found in the VoxEU. The piece talks about a pattern of how countries have sought compliance of WTO decisions. It also indicates the various types, strategies and means of seeking retaliation which includes cross retaliation to more commonly used retaliation methods.
"The purpose of this investigation was to identify key trends in the WTO dispute settlement system, in particular in the design of retaliation requests. Practice has demonstrated that additional effort is also put into the implementation of these measures once they are authorised. Nonetheless, the original retaliation request – the first opportunity for an offended member country to induce compensation or compliance – is an important tool, and analysing it helps understand countries’ behaviour and goals when pursuing WTO disputes."
It only shows that at times merely initiating a dispute and getting a decision is not the end of the game in WTO disputes. I had earlier blogged about cross retaliation hereCompliance and seeking retaliation is the next big battle.

Friday, February 28, 2014

Whither multilateralism?

Agreements
 Number of countries
% of World Population
 % of GDP
 % of World Trade


 Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP)

 12
 40
 60
 50
 Trans Atlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP)

 2
 17
 40
 34
Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) 

 16
 49
 30
 29
 Trade in Services Agreement (TISA)

 23
 25
 -
 68 (% of Services Trade)


With these kind of mega deals being negotiated, whither multilateralism in trade rule making?