Challenges of WTO Participation

Countries don't just show up in Doha, Cancun, Geneva, or Hong Kong and being negotiating.  They don't just decide one night to bring an accusation against a foreign nation in the WTO dispute settlement process.  Nations don't reach consensus instinctively on how to respond to changing trade environments.

Trade issues are complex.  A lot of economic and legal analysis and research, planning, soul-searching, advocacy, lobbying, agonized decision-making, canvassing of constituents, coordination or conflict between government departments and agencies, searches for allies, and more, take place behind the headlines. 

In many instances, trade process participants are poor countries, with limited analytical, legal, or administrative resources.  (Alan Beattie showed how hard it is for a poor country to participate last December in his story about the travails of Zambia's Trade Minister, Dipak Patel: Dipak Patel and Doha .)

For the last few evenings I've begun reading the new book, Managing the Challenges of WTO Participation, edited by Peter Gallagher, Patrick Low, and Andrew Stoler.  Challenges promises to provide insights into the work behind the headlines.

Challenges has 45 case studies of countries addressing trade related challenges.  Case study authors come from many countries, and include academics, consultants, and government officials.  The cases cover about 35 developing countries and two developed countries.  Developing countries run the gamut, and include countries that are really poor, Asian tigers, small island nations, and big emerging economies. 

The case studies address country challenges related to WTO accession, participation in WTO dispute resolution, participation in negotiations, and coping with the consequences of WTO agreements (for example, preference erosion). 

The case studies are on the order of 10-20 pages long.  The editors have enforced a certain amount of discipline and system on the organization of the studies.  The cases normally have four sections, one setting the context or defining the problem, one identifying key players, one describing how the challenge was faced, and a final one outlining possible lessons.  The editors themselves have prepared an introduction drawing out key themes developed in the cases.

The consistent organization across the studies should make it relatively easy to contrast experiences - for example, it should be possible in Andrew Stoler's two studies, to compare the ways in which the island states of Mauritius and Fiji are dealing with sugar preference erosion.

I've only read about six or seven of the cases so far.  My current favorite is about Costa Rica's challenge to U.S. restrictions on underwear imports.  This case was important because it represented the first time a small developing country challenged the U.S. under the WTO's new dispute settlement mechanism.  Costa Rica won the case, and the U.S. complied with the decision.

The Costa Rican Foreign Ministry and its ambassador to the U.S., U.S. multinationals with local textile investments, and local firms that sourced their fabric from the U.S., opposed taking on the case.  Other - larger - countries, in a similar position, declined to join the case.

The case was in the hands of a group of relatively young lawyers, two men and two women, in the new Trade Ministry.  Ultimately, the Costa Rican President was convinced to go forward:

...he appreciated the strategic argument that the case transcended the  economic considerations of the underwear industry.  Failing  to take a stand on what Costa  Rica perceived as threat to its rights under the GATT could eventually lead to a larger, and economically substantive, risk - the erosion of Costa Rica's ability to participate in and benefit from the world trading system.

Among the lessons: (1) take trade cases seriously - the U.S. didn't appear to, and its submission had serious flaws; (2) use the dispute settlement process as a last resort; (3) prepare carefully before you start - once things get going time frames are short and the opportunity to learn is limited - this may be more important these days, as parties to cases are more sophisticated now than they were then; (4) make sure you have support from key players within your government; (5) work with the press; (6) look for allies (Costa Rica received useful help from India during the proceeding).

It's irrelevant to this discussion, but there's a good book here.  There's probably a Hollywood movie as well.  Look what we've got - four attractive, young, male and female professional attorneys in the Trade Ministry, and an older supervisory figure (either the trade minister or the President), fighting against the opposition of other departments in their own government and, ultimately the full resources of the most powerful nation on earth (are these underdogs facing overwhelming odds, or what), and winning!  The Trade Ministry attorney's are described as "serious and competent technocrats," but that doesn't preclude Hollywood from tossing in a little romance and sexual tension. 

The cases are arranged alphabetically by name of the key country involved.  An alternative, thematic arrangement, might have been helpful.  This is an expensive paperback, $60, price, I assume, for college use and training workshops.

Comments

[Peter Gallagher]

Hi from Manila, Ben

Thanks for the review. It's hard work ploughing through all the cases; but some of them have real dramatic potential (as you note with the Costa Rica case). Other favorites of mine are

-- Rock 'n Roll in Bangladesh
-- Indian Agriculture (a fascinating inside story)
-- Malaysia TBT (condoms to Colombia)

I take your point about thematic organization; but the introduction is intended to supply some of that.

Best wishes,

Peter

[Ben Muse]

Peter is right. Eight short essays in the introduction discuss key themes from the text, and relate the different cases to these themes.

Ben