Official Launch of the WTO Chairs Program in Geneva

I was in Geneva last week for the launch of the WTO Chairs Program at the WTO Secretariat. Among the 14 institutions selected, three are from Asia countries, i.e., China, Indonesia and Viet Nam. Below is the speech by Lamy at the opening ceremony.

Lamy congratulates the 14 institutions selected for the WTO Chairs Programme

At the formal launch of the WTO Chairs Programme for developing countries, held at the WTO on 25 May 2010, Director-General Pascal Lamy welcomed the chairholders from 14 universities from around the world selected to participate in the first phase of the programme. "The award of a Chair is an acknowledgement of the competence of the selected institutions and the dedication of its scholars," said Mr Lamy, as he wished them every success in developing their partnership with the WTO. This is what he said:

Good morning. I would like to extend a warm welcome to all of you on the occasion of this formal launch of the WTO Chairs Programme. I should particularly like to welcome those of you from out of town, both the Chairholders from 14 universities around the world, and those members of the Advisory Board who were able to find the time to come to Geneva. It is also good to see some of the Geneva trade community here in support of their national WTO Chairholders.

As many of you know, the WTO Secretariat has been entrusted by the WTO membership to cooperate with governments in developing countries to enhance knowledge and understanding of the multilateral trading system and to facilitate more effective participation in its work. This is the raison d'être of our technical cooperation programme. Our efforts in this area have expanded considerably since the beginning of the Doha Round in 2001. We take this mandate very seriously and we are always on the lookout for ways of improving our game. We care about this because we believe that trade is an essential accompaniment of growth and development, and in order to benefit fully from the opportunities offered by trade, countries must be expert in identifying their trade interests, articulating them, and negotiating with trading partners for mutually beneficial outcomes.

For some time now, starting with our regional trade policy courses with which some of you may be familiar, we have sought partnerships with academic communities in developing countries. Since our mandate is to support governments, one might ask why, then, do we seek to work with universities? The answer is simple. We believe that the scholarly community is a source of valuable knowledge in any country. It brings to the table insights, understanding and a legitimacy that outside specialists can only partly hope to offer.

The WTO Chairs Programme, then, is an important plank of the Secretariat's strategy for academic support on capacity building, as reflected in our Technical Assistance and Training Plan. We believe in the particular contribution of national universities and research centres to the discussion and analysis of issues of public interest, including trade policy. Most governments around the world rely on those contributions and analytical capacities to formulate sound policies.

I should like to congratulate the 14 institutions that have been selected in this first phase of the programme. The award of a Chair is an acknowledgment of the competence of the selected institutions and the dedication of its scholars. It is also an encouragement to your researchers and students to take an interest in multilateral trade matters, a cornerstone of international global governance.

As you well know, trade issues by nature require a framework that takes a holistic view of the world economy. This is not only because of inter-linkages among the various sectors in any economy, but also because of the relationships between sectors in one economy and the economies of the rest of the world. Through your analytical contribution, you can help explain the workings, benefits and challenges of the trading system. Academics can help citizens understand and cope with the complexities of international business and globalization. They can also foster greater awareness and informed debate on international trade issues.

The ultimate objective of the WTO Chairs Programme is to strengthen the human and institutional capacities of universities from developing countries to support governments in the formulation of sound trade policies. The programme also seeks, through the Chairs, to support and facilitate the involvement in the process of other relevant stakeholders, such as the private sector, non-state actors and civil society. Policies that are understood and supported by the public at large are far more likely to succeed than those that are simply imposed, whether by internal or external decision-makers.

Each one of the universities selected for the programme has put forward its own work plan, specifying the intended output. I understand that you will be discussing these projects amongst yourselves over the next couple of days. The projects generally comprise a mixture of elements — increased course offerings on trade, policy-relevant research, and outreach activities aimed at raising awareness of trade-related policy issues. These are your proposals, and your projects. You own them. We are here to help, not to lead.

It is in this spirit that we have designated counterparts from the Secretariat to work with the Chairholders. It is for you, the Chairholders, to indicate what you need from us. As I have said, we stand ready to help in whatever way we can, obviously bearing in mind our own resource constraints.

We look forward to seeing progress. I believe that the first two years of the programme are crucial in terms of demonstrating to the WTO membership, and in particular the contributors to the Global Trust Fund, that this is a good way to use their resources. Some concrete output early on in the programme will serve to demonstrate the relevance of this approach, and that will be essential if we are to continue with, and expand, the programme.

Let me, finally, thank the Secretariat staff for their hard work on this programme, which was efficiently steered by Deputy Directors-General Valentine Rugwabiza and Alejandro Jara.

I wish you every success in your endeavours. Thank you for your attention.

2010 Annual Meeting of the American Society of International Law: China and East Asia on the World Stage

On March 27th, I will speak at the 2010 Annual Meeting of the American Society of International Law in the Panel on "China and East Asia on the World Stage". My paper is "From Rule Takers, Shakers to Makers: How Japan, China and Korea Shaped New Norms in International Economic Law", which I will present together with my co-author Prof. Saadia Pekkanen, Job & Gertrud Tamaki Professor at the University of Washington. Below is the Introduction part to the paper. 

While the rise of Asia in the international economy has been widely noted, much less appreciated is the way in which that rise has interacted with the forces of international economic law (IEL). Perhaps the most dominant perception among both legal scholars and social scientists is still that formal law does not play much of a role in the East Asian region – that its institutions are weak, that it has a preference for non-legalistic methods and non-binding commitments which also extend to dispute settlement mechanisms, and that in contrast to highly legal systems as, for example in Europe, far more weight should be given to the competition of national economies and ethnic groups in growing markets than legal dimensions in the case of Asia even today.

This very conceptualization that goes within and across Asian countries has also been extended to their behavior at the multilateral and international levels. Yet even those holding to the contrast between high levels of legalization in Europe and North America and low ones in the case of Asia in the early 2000s had also begun to note the increasing role of formal law in Asia.  This shift towards legalism has been most prominent at the global multilateral level as a number of works have stressed the importance of law and legal processes by and for Asian countries in contexts such as the World Trade Organization (WTO) as well as through burgeoning Free Trade Agreements (FTAs) and Bilateral Investment Treaties (BITs). In this paper we go further and take the first systematic steps towards a comparison of the activities of the dominant players in contemporary Asia, namely China, Japan, and Korea (CJK) with the goal of bringing them into mainstream debates and controversies in IEL.

 Using an interdisciplinary approach combining political economy approaches with legal scholarship, we aim to show how legalization has become a force to contend within Asia. By legalization we mean specifically that, in significant contrast to the past, Asian countries have begun to stress the dimensions of precision (unambiguous rules to require, authorize, or proscribe action), obligation (rules or commitments to bind action), and delegation (third parties to implement, interpret, and apply the rules for disputes or further rule-making) in a wide range of their economic relations. To be clear, we are not stressing that by doing so they are moving toward legal integration, where like the European and Andean cases, formal or informal moves help create a seamless rule of law affecting domestic actors and international tribunals. Rather, driven by their activities at the global, multilateral and now increasingly regional levels, the moves toward legalization should be seen as an evolutionary move toward the creation of the rule of law across borders. Thus as Asian states have begun to stress the dimensions of precision, obligation, and delegation in their economic relationships at present, the sum total of their moves may well go on to have significant implications for the creation of such rule of law systems in the future particularly in their foreign economic diplomacy.

Put simply, then, our main contention in this paper is that Asian states are no longer merely passive rule-takers in a system of IEL still widely thought to be dominated by Western countries, principally the United States and European Communities. Rather, as their economic clout has risen at both the global and regional level, key Asia states such as CJK have become aggressive users of the dispute settlement system of the WTO with novel directions in their domestic institutional landscapes; and they have also moved well beyond the narrow confines of the WTO-centered system to shape even regional and cross-regional legal frameworks to their advantage. How and why did things come to this? What exactly are the legal consequences both for IEL and these countries' domestic legal systems? What does the sum total of these sequential changes portend for the rule of law in CJK and other Asian countries more broadly?

The remainder of the paper is in three parts. The first part provides an analytical framework that stresses the rise and significance of commercial interests operating across borders, irrespective of whether the source is public or private in nature. Thus we are less concerned with whether a government or a business is responsible for economic flows across borders than with the fact that those flows are taking place. It also provides a brief statistical background, placing Asia's economic weight in global and regional context. Although we look at East Asia more broadly in the paper, we focus on the relative weight of dominant regional players, namely CJK which also go on to form the bulk of the analysis in this paper. The second part turns to the empirical evidence, focusing on substantial changes at both the international and domestic levels over the past twenty years that deserve close attention. At the international level, in breaking with their own tradition of being reluctant litigants, CJK along with other East Asian states have started to "shake" the existing power structure by actively using the existing legal rules to advance and defend their own interests in a policy shift to "aggressive legalism." This ongoing policy shift is one of the core elements for fortifying the "rule-based" WTO system, as well as strengthening the trend toward regional interaction on the basis of rules.  But these same states have also moved well beyond the WTO-centered system in the 2000s more visibly, as they have actually started to "make" new norms by proposing new rules at the multilateral level and creating a web of legal agreements at the inter-regional and intra-regional level that aim to reflect their own interests. These instruments span trade, investment, and finance, and are a harbinger of the continued legalization of Asian economic relations. The third part concludes, focusing on the implications of the analytical and empirical evidence for the future of the rule of law in the multilateral and regional system more broadly.

Two conferences

I will be speaking at two conferences next week. The first is the Asia-Pacific Trade Economists' Conference on Trade-Led Growth in Times of Crisis. Held in Bangkok, this conference is organized by the Asia-Pacific Research and Training Network on Trade (ARTNeT) in collaboration with the WTO, UNCTAD, UNDP and IDRC. The conference will also mark the celebration for the fifth anniversary of the ARTNeT, a research network sponsored by the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP). Some of the leading trade economists, including Alan Deardorff, Patrick Low, Simon Evenett, Kym Andersen, Patrick Messerlin, KC Fung, and Robert Scollay will be speaking in the conference. As probably the only lawyer among the speakers, I will be presenting my paper on the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (also known as the P4 Agreement).  The Conference brochure is here and the program can be found here. 

The second is a conference on "DSU Reform and Beyond - Enhancing Developing Countries' Capacity to Participate in WTO DSU Proceedings"organized by the ICTSD in Geneva. I will be speaking on the Trade Barrier Investigation mechanism of China.  The agenda can be found here.

Lecture in Seattle: Japan-China Trade Disputes: 'Aggressive Legalism' with a Confucian Touch

At the kind invitation of Prof. Saadia Pekkanen at the University of Washington, I will be speaking in Seattle next week on two occasions. Interested blog readers in the area are most welcome to join both events. Details are available below.

JANUARY 15, 2009

Thursday, 3:00-4:00 pm

Thomson Hall, Room 317

Henry Gao, Associate Professor, School of Law, Singapore Management University

Japan-China Trade Disputes: 'Aggressive Legalism' with a Confucian Touch

The first Chinese lawyer to ever work at the WTO Secretariat, Professsor Gao has published widely on all issues relating to China and WTO. He has spoken at conferences across the world and trained hundreds of government officials on WTO issues. A consultant to many national governments and international organizations, including the WTO, the World Bank and APEC, he is also a frequent commentator in major international media such as the Wall Street Journal, CNN, and Bloomberg. Co-sponsored by the Japan Studies Program, China Studies Program, and East Asia Center.

Workshop in Seattle: International Law and Regulatory Change: New Models for Japan and China

JANUARY 16, 2009

Friday, 9:00a.m.-4:30 pm

William H. Gates Hall, Room 115

Saadia Pekkanen, Joseph Rawert, Veronica Taylor, Jane Winn, Dongsheng Zang, University of Washington Ichiro Araki, Yokohama National University Henry Gao, Associate Professor, School of Law, Singapore Management University Amelia Porges, Sidley Austin LLP

International Law and Regulatory Change: New Models for Japan and China

This public workshop brings together Japan and China specialists to assess the role of international law and regulatory change in shaping the continuing economic transformation of these two Asian countries. The workshop focuses on the following set of interrelated questions across four different papers: What specific steps have these two countries taken to configure the institutional, legal, and regulatory makeup of their economic realities? In which areas, and to what degree, is their influence evident? What are the main causes and major consequences of their actions for the advance of the legal and regulatory framework in the Asian region as a whole? The discussants for this workshop will include two leading international trade law specialists from China and Japan. As one of the goals of this workshop is to begin to focus on Asia as part of a global legal community, the workshop themes will also be discussed by a leading international economic law specialist who can place the developments in the larger context of legal processes. Presented by the Asian Law Center, School of Law.  External co-sponsor: The American Society of Law's International Economic Law Interest Group. UW co-sponsors: Japan Studies Program, China Studies Program, and the Job and Gertrud Tamaki Professorship.

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Seminar on China and WTO dispute settlement

I will be in Brussels next week, visiting the European Commission and several law firms there. On Nov 25th, I will also give a seminar on China and WTO dispute settlement at the European Centre for International Political Economy (ECIPE), one of the leading think tanks on trade policy in the world. Interested blog readers in Brussels and the vicinity are most welcome to join the seminar. more details on the time, venue, and registration information can be found here.

2008 Biennial Interest Group Conference: The Politics of International Economic Law: The Next Four Years--Washington, DC

I will be speaking at the Biennial Conference of International Economic Law Interest Group of the American Society of International Law on November 15th. The conference announcement and program can be found here. 

Who Moved Our Milk?

At the kind invitation of Prof. Chang-fa Lo at the Asian Center of WTO & International Health Law and Policy (ACWH) at the National Taiwan University in Taipei, I attended the Workshop on Public Health: International Trade and Domestic Legal Issues in Taipei from October 16 to 17. I presented a paper titled "Who Moved Our Milk? A Primer on the Domestic and International Legal Issues in the Contaminated Milk Case in China". The following is the "Introduction" Part of the paper:

The time was the summer of 2008, a season of pride and excitement for the Chinese as China was about to fulfill its century-old dream to host the Olympic Games on the land of 5000 years of civilization. As the Olympic Torch was carried across China's shinning new cities along the coast, the rumor of deadly baby milk powders also traveled in the backward towns and villages in the hinterland of China. At Eight PM Beijing Time on August 8, 2008, the big game was launched in Beijing with the biggest Opening Ceremony the world has ever seen. For the two weeks after that, the deafening sound of "Zhongguo Jiayou", or loosely translated into "Go China", drew people's attention away from everything else that is happening on this vast land, including the lonely cries of the babies who have been suffering from kidney problems after drinking certain milk powers. After another lavish party finally drew an end to the Games on August 24, newspapers across the country started to report various cases of kidney failures of babies after they drank baby milk formula manufactured by "a certain brand". On September 11, 2008, the Shanghai-based Oriental Morning Post published a story titled "Fourteen Babies in Gansu Province Developed Kidney Stones after Drinking Milk Powers made by Sanlu". This story is the first one to reveal the identity of the manufacturer: the dairy giant Sanlu Group, which is based in Shijiazhuang, the capital of the northern province of Hebei with a name that means literally in Chinese as "The Place Where the (Kidney) Stones Come From". On the same date, Sanlu announced that, upon discovering melamine in some of its baby milk powers as a result of its self-inspection, it will recall all baby milk powders produced before August 8, or the day the Olympic Games opened. Just as the same date in the US seven years ago, this date, September 11, 2008, will forever be remembered by many in China, including, as the scandal unravels in the next few weeks, the 50,000+ children who were affected by the tainted milk powders and their relatives; the manufacturers, importers, and retailers of the thousands of products worldwide contaminated by the same chemical; the dozens of suspects who were arrested in connection with the scandal; and, last but not least, the handful of senior government officials who were sacked amid the fallout.  

At the time this article is written, it still remains unclear as to exactly how melamine, a chemical that is usually found in paint and has no nutritional value whatsoever, was so widely used in virtually all dairy products manufactured in China. However, as the author is neither a medical practitioner nor a chemist, this question will not be the focus of the inquiry here. Instead, this article will discuss the possible legal responses to the case. In carrying out this task, it is useful to first lay down several premises that we know for sure: first, the dairy products have been contaminated with melamine; second, the contamination occurred during the production process in China; third, melamine was added by someone intentionally rather than inadvertently; and fourth, the contamination affected products destined for both domestic consumption and exports. With these commonly-accepted facts as the background, this article proceeds to discuss how a public health crisis is handled under the rules of both the domestic legal regime and multilateral trading system. After discussing the pros and cons of the legal responses under both regimes, this article argues that, while domestic legal actions usually provides the most direct and effective remedy, this is not always the case. Instead, for countries with defective legal regimes, legal actions under international rules, though usually slow and not always effective, might turn out to be the best strategy to fix the problem.

Fwd: SMU School of Law - A Joint Seminar on WTO and FTA

---------- Forwarded message ----------

From: LAW <law@smu.edu.sg>
Date: Mon, Sep 22, 2008 at 5:17 PM
Subject: School of Law - A Joint Seminar on WTO and FTA
To: SMU_Faculty_Admin <staff@smu.edu.sg>, "Faculty (Adjunct)" <FacultyAdjunct@smu.edu.sg>, "Faculty (Visiting)" <FacultyVisiting@smu.edu.sg>

 

Click here if you are unable to view this page.

	School of Law cordially invites you to A Joint Seminar on The World Trade Organization (WTO) and Free Trade Agreements (FTA) By Prof. Mitsuo Matsushita Professor Emeritus, University of Tokyo Founding Member, WTO Appellate Body and Prof. William J. Davey Guy Raymond Jones Chair Emeritus, University of Illinois College of Law Former Director, Legal Affairs Division, WTO Secretariat View CV 9 October 2008, Thursday 3.00pm to 5.30pm Networked Seminar Room 1-3 School of Law Level 1 60 Stamford Road Singapore 178900 Location Map Abstract Established in 1994, the WTO has quickly become one of the most important international organizations in the world today. Over the past few years, however, the WTO has met many new challenges. One of the most serious challenges is the FTAs that have mushroomed around the world, especially in the Asia region. How would these FTAs affect the WTO? What are the other challenges facing the WTO? How should the WTO deal with these challenges? In this joint seminar, two of the world's most renowned scholars on WTO will share with you their thoughts on these issues and beyond. The seminar will start with a lecture on "Proliferation of FTA and its Implications on the World Trading System" by Prof. Matsushita, a founding member of the WTO Appellate Body, popularly known as the "World Court on International Trade". In the second part of the seminar, Prof. Davey, former Chief Legal Advisor of the WTO Secretariat, will continue the intelle ctual journey with a lecture on "The Future of the WTO". Afterwards, there will be an opportunity for an interactive dialogue with both speakers on these and other issues relating to the multilateral trading system. Registration Kindly register by 7 October 2008, Tuesday. Attendance is by registration only. We look forward to seeing you at this event. Yours sincerely, Office of the Dean School of Law Singapore Management University

	© Copyright 2006 by Singapore Management University. All Rights Reserved.

Conference Announcement: The WTO in Difficult Times: New Challenges and New Prospects

The WTO in Difficult Times: New Challenges and New Prospects

Dear Friends and Colleagues,

It is with great pleasure that we invite you to the International Conference on "The WTO in Difficult Times: New Challenges and New Prospects", co-hosted by SMU School of Law and the Asian WTO Research Network.

Synopsis of Conference

The subprime meltdown, inflation, global food shortage, and rising oil prices……the world has become a very difference place as we entered 2008. How will the new economic environment affect the World Trade Organization (WTO), and how shall the WTO deal with these new challenges in such difficult time? Bringing together leading WTO scholars from Asia and beyond, this international conference will provide a good opportunity to reflect upon some of the most pressing issues facing the multilateral trading system today.

Registration

Free Admission. Click here for registration.
Further details can be found at our conference website.

Conference Notice: 3rd Meeting of the Port-city University League (PUL) - "The port as a complex reality: legal and environmental issues"

---------- Forwarded message ----------

From: Reitoria da Universidade de Lisboa <reitoria@reitoria.ul.pt>
Date: 2008/9/3
Subject: 3rd Meeting of the Port-city University League (PUL) - "The port as a complex reality: legal and environmental issues"
To: henrygao@smu.edu.sg

Dear Sir or Madam,

The University of Lisbon (Portugal) will organise on the 27-30 October 2008 the 3^rd Meeting of the Port-city University League (PUL) with the theme "The port as a complex reality: legal and environmental issues".

The PUL intends to foster collaboration, excellence and innovation between port cities and higher education institutions toward creating a global base of research and education. At a time that the network of global ports is expected to develop further developments, the PUL is very keen to enhance further international cooperation and holds a meeting at Lisbon to share different experiences and to define new strategies.

The 3^rd Meeting of the PUL aims at providing up-to-date information and further discussions on the complex integration of ports on a city context, focusing on a range of topics related to legal, urban and environmental issues. The meeting will include both lectures and port visits and is aimed not only at research scientists, but also for those involved in the assessment of environmental quality, management systems, insurances, trades, etc. The speakers' panel is composed of some of the most renowned international experts on port and city communication, trade, border control, industrial development, ocean and coastal management and environmental protection.

Considering the relevance and broadening of the theme we kindly request your collaboration in publicizing this Meeting so that many higher education institutions can participate and give way to a fruitful debate.

The program, registration and other information details are available at http://www.pul2008.ul.pt. The deadline for registration is 3^rd October 2008. In case you need further information, please do not hesitate to contact the organisation through the following e-mail address pul2008@reitoria.ul.pt.

We really expect you to join us.

The Organization Team
Rectorate of the University of Lisbon
Alameda da Universidade
1649-004 Lisbon
Portugal

Exmos. Senhores,

A Universidade de Lisboa vai organizar de 27 a 30 de Outubro de 2008 o 3.º Encontro Liga Universitária de Cidades Portuárias, subordinada ao tema "O porto como uma realidade complexa: questões legais e ambientais".

A Liga Universitária de Cidades Portuárias (PUL – Port-city University League) pretende fortalecer a colaboração, excelência e inovação entre as cidades portuárias e as instituições de ensino superior com o intuito de criar um think tank sobre o tema, uma base global de investigação e ensino. No momento em que a rede global de portos está em franca expansão e em que é cada vez mais relevante o estreitamento de laços de cooperação internacional a PUL reúne-se em Lisboa para partilhar diferentes experiências e definir novas estratégias de acção.

O 3.º Meeting da PUL visa essencialmente debater a perspectiva actual sobre a complexa integração de portos em contexto citadino, focando-se num conjunto de temas relacionados com questões legais, urbanas e ambientais. A reunião inclui conferências e visitas ao porto de Lisboa, dirigindo-se não só a investigadores, mas também a todos os que estão envolvidos na avaliação da qualidade ambiental, sistemas de gestão e administração, seguros, comércios, etc. O painel de oradores integra conceituados especialistas nacionais e internacionais na área do desenvolvimento dos portos e respectiva tecnologia, envolvência urbana, sustentabilidade social, económica e ambiental.

Solicitamos a vossa colaboração na divulgação desta Reunião para que seja possível uma participação ampla das instituições de ensino superior cujo contributo, dada a relevância e abrangência do tema, deverá proporcionar um debate frutuoso.

O programa, inscrição e outras informações sobre o Meeting podem ser consultados em http://www.pul2008.ul.pt. Salientamos que a data limite de inscrição é 3 de Outubro de 2008. Qualquer esclarecimento pode ser solicitado à organização, através do e-mail pul2008@reitoria.ul.pt

Agradecemos, desde já, a vossa colaboração.

Com os melhores cumprimentos,

A Organização da Reunião

Divisão de Relações Externas da DSRE

Reitoria da Universidade de Lisboa

Alameda da Universidade

1649-004 Lisboa

Telefone: + 351 217 939 193

Internationlization of legal education services

From July 26th to August 2nd, I was in Palm Beach, Flordia for the 61st Annual Meeting of the Southeastern Association of Law Schools (SEALS), the largest regional association of law school in the US. I was invited to speak on the Panel on Comparative Business Regulation, but also participated in other panels, including one on the international programs by US-based law schools. I was surprised to find that, even though the US has been aggressively pushing for the opening up of services markets worldwide, most US law schools (except some of the elite schools) have been rather late in their internationalization efforts. On the other hand, many law schools in Europe and Asia are way ahead in this game. Unless more efforts can be put into this, the employment prospects of greduates of US law schools might be further dimmed with the decline of the US influence worldwide.

A Busy Week

I was extremely busy last week. First I was at the inaugural conference of the Society of International Economic Law (SIEL), which was held in Geneva from July 15 to 17. The SIEL is the first global society for trade lawyers, and it was great to meet so many old friends there. I presented a paper on the Trade Barrier Investigation Mechanism of China, as part of the panel on China and the WTO. The full conference program is available here.

Hopping on the plane immediately after the conference, I flied to Macau for the Academy of International Trade Law organized by the IEEM. Taught by some of the leading scholars on trade law from around the world, this program is the best in this region and I always encourage promising young students to apply. To help students with financial difficulties, a limited number of scholarships are available for qualified applicants.

Right after I arrived in Hong Kong to take the ferry to Macau, the Panel in the China-Auto Parts case issued their highly-anticipated report. As I mentioned earlier in this blog, while the legal issues in the case are relatively straightforward, the more interesting question is how China would react to its first defeat in the WTO.

On the 21st, the day before I left Macau, trade ministers started a week of intensive negotiation at the WTO in Geneva. The main objective of this latest round of negotiation is to work out a new July (2008) package to conclude the DDA. While the WTO states that "the July 2008 package is a stepping stone on the way to concluding the Doha Round by the end of 2008", I doubt that we will see the end of Doha by the end of this year, especially with the result of the US presidential election is still up in the air and the Trade Promotion Authority has not been renewed. It is probably more realistic to aim for 2009, or 2010 as the end of Doha.

Two Dialogues

I was in Barcelona last week for two dialogues at the kind invitation of Professor Ramon Torrent from the International Chair WTO/Regional Integration (University of Barcelona). The first was the New Dialogue on global trade challenges and research priorities, organized by ICTSD and the International Chair WTO/Regional Integration (University of Barcelona) on 28-29 May 2008. The second was Global Dialogue amongst Stakeholders: The Future of Agriculture, organized by the International Chair WTO/Regional Integration (University of Barcelona), the International Centre for Trade and Sustainable Development (ICTSD) and the International Food and Agricultural Trade Policy Council (IPC), on 30-31 May 2008.

Calling all Asian IEL/WTO Scholars

The Society of International Economic Law (SIEL) will have its inaugural conference in Geneva from the 15th to the 17th of July. At 16:00 PM on July 15th, there will be a meeting of the Asian WTO Research Network (AWRN). To encourage the intellectual exchange among Asian scholars, we welcome all WTO/IEL scholars from Asia (especially South Asia) to join us in the meeting even if you are not a member of the AWRN or if you are not a speaker at the SIEL conference. Please check the SIEL conference webpage for further details on the venue later.

Warwick Commission Report

I was at a Roundtable launching the Warwick Report in Singapore on Friday the 5th. Compared with the Sutherland Report, the Warwick Commission is different in two ways: First, it is an "unofficial" report in the sense that the commissioners are not appointed by the WTO, but by private parties. Of course, this in no way means that the report will be less relevant or important. Second, while many commissioners are big names in the WTO circle (such as Patrick Low, chief economist at the WTO; Pierre Sauvé, leading authority on GATS; etc.), the commissioners include more than the usual "suspects" by including several people who are not usually heard of in the trade circle. Of course, this also in no way means that they are less qualified than the good fellas of the "WTO mafia". Indeed, probably because the Warwick Commission do not have these constraints, some of their suggestions are even more interesting than the Sutherland Report. Interested readers can find the whole report here.

"Cutting-EDGE" Research: Terminator, Confessor, Inquisitor and Enforcer

I'm leaving tomorrow for Waterloo, Canada, where I will speak at the WTO Institutional Reform Project workshop hosted by the EDGE network. At the conference, I will present a paper that I co-authored with my colleage Prof. Chin Leng Lim on "Saving the WTO from the Risk of Irrelevance: The WTO Dispute Settlement Mechanism as a 'Common Good' for RTA Disputes". Here are the first few lines of the paper:

Over the past few decades, Regional Trade Agreements (RTAs) have exploded all around the world (Warwick Report, at 45). The consensus among the trade circle now is that "regionalism is here to stay" (Baldwin, 2006, at 1508), "will [not] disappear" (Warwick Report, at 53) and "little can be done to prevent … spread of [RTAs]" (Sutherland Report, at 103). Such proliferation of RTAs created a renewed sense of urgency for the WTO to take some actions to avoid the fate of being eclipsed into irrelevance. There are several options to cope with the challenge:

The first option sees the WTO as the "terminator" of RTAs. Theoretically speaking, the best approach would be to heighten the level of ambition in global trade talks to reduce all trade barriers to zero so that the discriminatory effect created by RTAs could be reduced or even eliminated (Warwick Report, at 51). In reality, however, such approach would be impossible for well-known reasons.

The second option sees the WTO is as the "confessor". If we think of granting preferential treatments in RTAs and violating the non-discrimination principle of the WTO as committing a cardinal sin in the Religion of Free Trade, the "terminator" would wipe out those sins by eliminating the preferences. In contrast, while the "confessor" cannot wipe out those sins, he could at least alleviate the guilty feeling by reducing the negative impact of those sins. As the "confessor", the WTO's roles include first, providing objective research to help better understand the impact of RTAs on non-Members and second, setting up a negotiating forum for the coordination/standardisation/harmonisation of rules of origin, as well as third, drafting "best practices" or model RTAs to minimize the effect of further fragmentation created by different breeds of RTAs (Warwick Report, at 52). The problems with this approach are first the resource constraints of the WTO, second the political sensitivities, and third, whether the "one size fit all" approach would work.

Yet another option offered is to turn the WTO into an "inquisitor" by strengthening the existing monitoring system of the WTO on RTAs, with the 2006 rules on transparency being the most recent example (Warwick Report, at 52). Unfortunately, however, as the Committee on Regional Trade Agreements (CRTA), the main institution entrusted with the monitoring task in the WTO, has been plagued with the lack of efficiency brought by the consensus rule, any heightened monitoring rules would not be of much use either.

In this article, we will discuss the fourth option, i.e., to make the WTO an "enforcer" by using the WTO dispute settlement mechanism as a venue for resolving at least some disputes among RTA parties, and possibly even among both RTA and non-RTA WTO Members. The rationale underlying this initiative is that, by using the WTO dispute settlement system for RTA disputes, the Members will be able to develop gradually a body of "common law" on RTAs, which would then form the basis of multilateral rules on RTAs or harmonizing rules in different RTAs. This way, we can minimize the harmful effect of RTAs, and indeed turn RTAs from "stumbling blocks" into "building blocks" of the multilateral trading system.

Conference on “Trade, WTO and Sustainable Development: A Cause for Concern?”

From April 23 to 24, I went to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia for the Conference on "Trade, WTO and Sustainable Development: A Cause for Concern?", organized by International Islamic University Malaysia, Southeast Asian Council for Food Security and Fair Trade, Education and Research Association of Consumers Malaysia, Federation of Malaysian Consumer Associations and United Nations Development Program (UNDP). At the conference, I presented a paper on " Winning a WTO Case based on non-WTO Law: Illusion or Reality?". Further information about the conference can be found at here.

Free Trade Agreements: Where Is the World Heading?

I went to Gold Coast, Australia from March 8th to 11th for the conference on "Free Trade Agreements: Where Is the World Heading?", an International and Interdisciplinary Conference Hosted by The Faculty of Law of Bond University and Tim Fischer Centre for Global Trade and Finance. At the conference, I presented a paper on "The RTA Strategy of China: A Critical Visit".

China's Participation in the WTO

Today I presented my paper on China's Participation in the WTO at the International Conference on Contemporary China Studies. This is the Conclusions part of my article:

Due to the changes in the political and economic environments, it has taken China fifteen years to be finally admitted into the multilateral trading system as represented by the WTO. Such political and economic realities are also reflected in the legal terms embodied in China’s final accession package. Generally speaking, during its accession, China has made much deeper and broader commitments than most other WTO Members, especially developing country Members. As the Chinese economy has strong resilience, however, the high level of market access commitments in both trade in goods and trade in services would not have as deep an effect on the economy as people might have thought. Instead, the biggest challenge lies in the rules area, especially those discriminatory terms which almost downgrade China to a second-class Member in the WTO. Such terms, if used rather liberally, could severely affect China’s trade interests, especially export expansion capacities in foreign markets and cause great distortion to the world market. Moreover, it such terms are also imposed on other potential Members seeking accession, there would be an imbalance of rights and obligations among the older and newer Members. In response to these challenges, China has become more and more aggressive in protecting its own trade interests since its accession. This trade strategy is reflected in the actions it has taken at three levels: at the domestic level, China has revised its trade laws and regulations to provide for more trade remedies tools for its firms; at the bilateral and regional level, China has been actively pursuing FTA negotiations with many of its trade partners; at the multilateral level, until very recently, China has not been very active in either WTO negotiations or dispute settlement. With better self-assessment of its own trade interests and deeper understanding of the function of the WTO dispute settlement system, however, we would soon start to see China become active in the multilateral trading system as well.