Developing countries have a major stake in the outcome of trade negotiations conducted under the auspices of the World Trade Organization (WTO). 'Agriculture and the WTO: Creating a Trading System for Development' explores the key issues and options in agricultural trade liberalization from the perspective of these developing countries. Leading experts in trade and agriculture from both developed and developing countries provide key research findings and policy analyses on a range of issues that includes market access, domestic support, export competition, quota administration methods, food security, biotechnology, intellectual property rights, and agricultural trade under the Uruguay Round Agreement on Agriculture. Material is covered in summary and in comprehensive detail with supporting data, a substantial bibliography, and listings of online resources. This book will be of interest to policymakers and analysts in the fields of development economics and commodities pricing and trade.

International experts from law, economics and political science provide in-depth analysis of international trade issues. Attorneys, economists and political scientists adopt a common viewpoint, entitled 'transcending the ostensible'. This approach directs particular attention to the possibility that WTO legal institutions, like other international legal institutions, will function in unexpected ways due to the political and economic conditions of the international environment in which they have been created, and in which they operate. A range of trade problems are considered here. Topics include the constitutional dimensions of international trade law, adding subjects and restructuring existing subjects to international trade law, the legal relations between developed and developing countries, and the operation of the WTO dispute settlement procedure. This will be an essential volume for professionals and academics involved with international trade policy.

The volume offers to the reader a multi-faceted dialogue between noted experts from two major agricultural countries, both founding members of the Word Trade Organisation, each one with different stakes in the great globalisation game. After providing the recent historical background of agricultural policies in India and France, the contributors address burning issues related to market and regulation, food security and food safety, the expected benefits from the WTO and the genuine problems raised by the new forms of international trade in agriculture, including the sensitive question of intellectual property rights in bio-technologies. This informed volume underlines the necessity of moving beyond the North-South divide, in order to address the real challenges of the future.

Agricultural trade is a major factor determining food security in Caribbean countries. In these small open economies, exports are essential, whilst imports provide a large part of the food supply. This book examines various dimensions of trade policy and related issues and suggests policies to address trade and food security and rural development linkages. It is as a guide and reference documents for agricultural trade policy analysts, trade negotiators, policy-makers and planners in both the public and private sectors.

"This book describes and analyzes the attempts that were made to make trade in agriculture less distorted, more stable and predictable, and less of a dangerous source of political friction between nations, in successive rounds of negotiations under the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade in the 45-year period from GATT's inception in 1947 to the end of the Uruguay Round in 1993. While the book analyzes the development of international trade policy throughout the postwar period, particular attention is given to the Kennedy, Tokyo and Uruguay Round of GATT negotiations in which the problems of trade in agricultural products were confronted." "For each round, the positions of major participants in international arrangements that should govern trade in agriculture, the contending proposals, and the results of the negotiations are explained and analyzed. However, the specific issues and positions on agricultural trade are set in the broader context of changing international political relations, developments in the international and national economies, the conditions in international food markets, and the evolution of 'domestic' agricultural policies in the major countries and regional groupings."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved

After evaluating the Uruguay Round's impact on agriculture and border protection in the next decade, the author concludes that while there was significant reform of the rules - particularly the conversion of nontariff barriers into tariffs and the reduction and binding of all tariffs - in practice, trade will probably be liberalized less than expected. The objective of the Round was to reverse protectionism and remove trade distortions. This may not be achieved in practice, at least not until further reductions are carried out in future rounds of negotiations. The major exception to this conclusion is in high-income Asian countries, where protection for major commodities will be significantly reduced. The tariffication and binding of all tariffs on agricultural products represents a significant step forward. Liberalization is implicit because countries are prohhibited from arbitrarily raising tariffs to new higher levels. But many of the newly established tariffs are so high in many countries as to effectively prohibit trade. Patterns of liberalization vary considerably by commodity and by country. Generally, the extent of liberalization was diminished by binding tariffs to the base period of 1986-88, when border protection was at a high point. In most OECD countries, this was worsened by quot;dirty tariffication:quot; the new base tariffs offered even greater protection than the nontariff barriers they replaced. Even after the commitments to tariff reductions in the Round, the ad valorem measure of the final binding tariffs will remain higher than the average rate of protection in 1982-93. A number of developing countries in East Asia, Latin America, and the Middle East chose to lock in prior liberalization efforts on some products. But for most commodities, there will be little actual liberalization, since most developing countries chose to bind their tariffs at a maximum level. Even when countries reduced already-bound rates, bound tariffs remained significantly higher than current applied rates, giving countries the flexibility to raise tariffs later. The high level of bound tariffs may allow countries to apply variable tariffs below the bound level, thus failing to stabilize tariffs and improve market access. Moreover, the Round did not touch many of the worst distortions in developing countries, such as import subsidies, export taxes, state-trading monopolies, and domestic policies that implicitly tax agriculture.

August 1995 After evaluating the Uruguay Round's impact on agriculture and border protection in the next decade, the author concludes that while there was significant reform of the rules - particularly the conversion of nontariff barriers into tariffs and the reduction and binding of all tariffs - in practice, trade will probably be liberalized less than expected. The objective of the Round was to reverse protectionism and remove trade distortions. This may not be achieved in practice, at least not until further reductions are carried out in future rounds of negotiations. The major exception to this conclusion is in high-income Asian countries, where protection for major commodities will be significantly reduced. The tariffication and binding of all tariffs on agricultural products represents a significant step forward. Liberalization is implicit because countries are prohhibited from arbitrarily raising tariffs to new higher levels. But many of the newly established tariffs are so high in many countries as to effectively prohibit trade. Patterns of liberalization vary considerably by commodity and by country. Generally, the extent of liberalization was diminished by binding tariffs to the base period of 1986-88, when border protection was at a high point. In most OECD countries, this was worsened by dirty tariffication: the new base tariffs offered even greater protection than the nontariff barriers they replaced. Even after the commitments to tariff reductions in the Round, the ad valorem measure of the final binding tariffs will remain higher than the average rate of protection in 1982-93. A number of developing countries in East Asia, Latin America, and the Middle East chose to lock in prior liberalization efforts on some products. But for most commodities, there will be little actual liberalization, since most developing countries chose to bind their tariffs at a maximum level. Even when countries reduced already-bound rates, bound tariffs remained significantly higher than current applied rates, giving countries the flexibility to raise tariffs later. The high level of bound tariffs may allow countries to apply variable tariffs below the bound level, thus failing to stabilize tariffs and improve market access. Moreover, the Round did not touch many of the worst distortions in developing countries, such as import subsidies, export taxes, state-trading monopolies, and domestic policies that implicitly tax agriculture.

It has always proved difficult to achieve trade liberalization for agricultural products.This book shows how a new Agriculture Agreement in the WTO led to CAP reform, which in turn allowed for greater flexibility in subsequent international trade negotiations.

Annotation This collection highlights the main trade issues of importance to different regions of the world.