Happy New Year

A Very Happy New Year to you all. 

And I will be more regular in my posts in 2014!

Trade Facilitation Agreement - A guide already?

For those interested in Trade facilitation issues, the new Trade Facilitation Agreement and developing countries interests, there seems to be a guide already out - it is here and is titled "Trade Facilitation Agreement - Business Guide for Developing Countries".

The press release says:

"The guide, which is available free of charge via ITC's web site, explains the provisions of the agreement in clear and jargon free language, with a focus on what businesses need to know from an operational perspective if they are to use the new rules as a platform to increase trade and decrease the cost and time of exporting."

Many more of such treatises to follow, I guess.

On Law Schools and leaders

Came across this interesting piece by Susan Sturm in the Harvard Law Review pertaining to the role of Law Schools in creating and shaping public leaders:

"Law schools’ rhetoric celebrates lawyers’ leadership role. In law schools around the country, entering and departing students are told that they are the nation’s leaders, reminded of the serious and intractable problems facing the nation and the world, and exhorted to roll up their sleeves and put public good before private gain. Law schools define cultivating public leadership as core to their mission and admissions practices...

         ... 

Law schools have the potential to ignite and energize people’s aspirations, imaginations, and passions to work on matters of public concern, including problems of growing inequality, as an integral part of their work. I want to suggest that it is imperative to connect the redesign of law schools to a broader vision of law and a deeper set of questions about lawyers’ roles in addressing the pressing problems that require public attention and that our current public and private institutions lack the capacity to solve. Law schools should take more seriously and focus considerable attention on how lawyers participate in and exercise leadership in a wide variety of settings, and do so in ways that are deeply collaborative with other professions and with those most directly affected by the challenges that are the subject of attention."

More research on exchange rate mainpulation

For those following the currency exchange manipulation debate, a recent Congressional Research Study (CRS) analyses some of the important issues involved. Pointing out the debate on possible intervention in the WTO, the author states:

"Given the relationship between exchange rates and trade, some have argued that the World Trade Organization (WTO) has a role to play in responding to currency disputes. Some analysts and lawyers have examined whether WTO provisions allow for recourse against countries that are unfairly undervaluing its currency. 

One aspect of the debate is whether WTO agreement on export subsidies applies to countries with undervalued currencies. The WTO Agreement on Subsidies and Countervailing Measures specifies that countries may not provide subsidies to help promote their national exports, and countries are entitled to levy countervailing duties on imported products that receive subsidies from their national government. Some economists maintain that an undervalued currency lowers a firm’s cost of production relative to world prices and therefore helps encourage exports. Some argue, then, that an undervalued currency should count as an export subsidy. It is not clear, however, whether intentional undervaluation of a country's currency is an export subsidy under the WTO's specific definition of the term, and thus is eligible for recourse through countervailing duties under WTO agreements. For example, the subsidy must be, among other things, specific to an industry and not provided generally to all producers. There is debate over whether intentional undervaluation of a currency is “industry specific” because it applies to everyone.  

Another aspect of the debate relates to a provision in the GATT (the WTO agreement on international trade in goods), which states that member countries “shall not, by exchange action, frustrate intent of the provisions” of the agreement.Some analysts argue that policies to undervalue a currency are protectionist policies, and thus should count as an exchange rate action that frustrates the intent of the GATT. Others argue that the language is too vague to apply to undervalued currencies. Specifically, they argue that the language was written to apply to an international system of exchange rates that no longer exists (the system of fixed exchange rates, combined with capital controls, that prevailed from the end of World War II to the early 1970s).  

No dispute over exchange rates has been brought before the WTO, and whether currency disputes fall under the WTO's jurisdiction remains a contested issue."

I have blogged on this quite a bit. For the moment, there seems to be no immediate appetite for a WTO intervention, either at the negotiating table or at dispute settlement. However, one can never rule out possibilities in international law and politics.

More litigation practise

Talking about litigation practice, it seems Indonesia has filed another case. This time it is against Pakistan over anti-dumping measures taken by it against writing and printing paper from Indonesia. The case (DS470) is reported here.

Talking about WTO disputes, the big one this week was the Seals dispute between Norway and EU that I have  blogged about here earlier. 

The panel concluded that the IC exception under the EU Seal Regime violates Article I:1 of the GATT 1994 because an advantage granted by the European Union to seal products originating in Greenland (specifically, its Inuit population) is not accorded immediately and unconditionally to the like products originating in Norway. With respect to the MRM exception, the panel found that it violates Article III:4 of the GATT 1994 because it accords imported seal products treatment less favourable than that accorded to like domestic seal products. The panel also found that the IC exception and the MRM exception are not justified under Article XX(a) of the GATT 1994 (“necessary to protect public morals”) because they fail to meet the requirements under the chapeau of Article XX (“not applied in a manner that would constitute arbitrary or unjustified discrimination where the same conditions prevail or a disguised restriction on international trade”). The panel additionally found that the European Union failed to make a prima facie case that the EU Seal Regime is justified under Article XX(b) of the GATT 1994 (“necessary to protect … animal … life or health”).

Need to get down to reading the Panel report and commenting on it soon.

Strategic litigation at any cost?

I have blogged about the Tobacco Plain packaging case here, here and here. The dispute brings to the fore many aspects of dispute settlement at the WTO itself - like what is national interest, domestic policy space and international economic law, employment issues and trade as well as corporate interests and national positions.

This piece in the Jakarta Globe which gives a background on Indonesia's entry into the dispute  brought another angle to the dispute - strategic preparation in dispute settlement.

"For Indonesia, this is another opportunity for it to develop and enhance its understanding of how, when, and why to use the WTO dispute settlement system to further its own export interests. Indonesia started out by being a rather reluctant user of the system, when it was on the receiving end of complaints brought by several developed countries against its indigenous car program in 1996." 

 Is this another facet of strategic litigation at any cost at the WTO?

Do not de-industrialise too soon?

Dani Rodrik's piece in the Project Syndicate recently brought to light the delicate balance between the role of the manufacturing and services sector in an economy. Titled "The Perils of Premature De-industrialisation" it warns of a shift away from the manufacturing sector too soon and it's possible impact on developing countries.

"The economic, social, and political consequences of premature deindustrialization have yet to be analyzed in full. On the economic front, it is clear that early deindustrialization impedes growth and delays convergence with the advanced economies. Manufacturing industries are what I have called “escalator industries”: labor productivity in manufacturing has a tendency to converge to the frontier, even in economies where policies, institutions, and geography conspire to retard progress in other sectors of the economy. 

That is why rapid growth historically has always been associated with industrialization (except for a handful of small countries with large natural-resource endowments). Less room for industrialization will almost certainly mean fewer growth miracles in the future.

The social and political consequences are less fathomable, but could be equally momentous. Some of the building blocks of durable democracy have been byproducts of sustained industrialization: an organized labor movement, disciplined political parties, and political competition organized around a right-left axis."

An indication that manufacturing and services have to go together?