The world economic order has been upended by the rise of the BRIC nations and the attendant decline of the United States' international influence. In Breaking the WTO, Kristen Hopewell provides a groundbreaking analysis of how these power shifts have played out in one of the most important theaters of global governance: the World Trade Organization. Hopewell argues that the collapse of the Doha Round negotiations in 2008 signals a crisis in the American-led project of neoliberal globalization. Historically, the U.S. has pressured other countries to open their markets while maintaining its own protectionist policies. Over the course of the Doha negotiations, however, China, India, and Brazil challenged America's hypocrisy. They did so not because they rejected the multilateral trading system, but because they embraced neoliberal rhetoric and sought to lay claim to its benefits. By demanding that all members of the WTO live up to the principles of "free trade," these developing states caused the negotiations to collapse under their own contradictions. Breaking the WTO probes the tensions between the WTO's liberal principles and the underlying reality of power politics, exploring what the Doha conflict tells us about the current and coming balance of power in the global economy.

Between Law and Diplomacy crafts an insider's look at international trade disputes at one of the most important institutions in the global economy—the World Trade Organization. The WTO regulates the global rules for trade, and—unique among international organizations—it provides a legalized process for litigation between countries over trade grievances. Drawing on interviews with trade lawyers, ambassadors, trade delegations, and trade jurists, this book details how trade has become increasingly legalized and the implications of that for power relations between rich and poor countries. Joseph Conti looks closely at who uses the system to initiate and pursue disputes, who settles and on what terms, and the relative disconnect between pursuing a dispute and what a country gains through efforts to gain compliance with WTO dictates. Through this inside look at the process of disputing, Conti provides fresh perspective on how and why the law authorizes the use of specific resources and tactics in the ever unfolding struggle for control in the global economy.

The History and Future of the World Trade Organization is a comprehensive account of the economic, political and legal issues surrounding the creation of the WTO and its evolution. Fully illustrated with colour and black-and-white photos dating back to the early days of trade negotiations, the publication reviews the WTO's achievements as well as the challenges faced by the organisation, and identifies the key questions that WTO members need to address in the future. The book describes the intellectual roots of the trading system, membership of the WTO and the growth of the Geneva trade community, trade negotiations and the development of coalitions among the membership, and the WTO's relations with other international organisations and civil society. Also covered are the organisation's robust dispute settlement rules, the launch and evolution of the Doha Round, the rise of regional trade agreements, and the leadership and management of the WTO.

China's entry into the World Trade Organization (WTO) in 2001 was heralded as historic, and for good reason: the world's most populous nation was joining the rule-based system that has governed international commerce since World War II. But the full ramifications of that event are only now becoming apparent, as the Chinese economic juggernaut has evolved in unanticipated and profoundly troublesome ways. In this book, journalist Paul Blustein chronicles the contentious process resulting in China's WTO membership and the transformative changes that followed, both good and bad - for China, for its trading partners, and for the global trading system as a whole. The book recounts how China opened its markets and underwent far-reaching reforms that fuelled its economic takeoff, but then adopted policies - a cheap currency and heavy-handed state intervention - that unfairly disadvantaged foreign competitors and circumvented WTO rules. Events took a potentially catastrophic turn in 2018 with the eruption of a trade war between China and the United States, which has brought the trading system to a breaking point. Regardless of how the latest confrontation unfolds, the world will be grappling for decades with the challenges posed by China Inc.

With China's accession to the World Trade Organization imminent, this book brings together the expert views of scholars, policy-makers and business representatives on the consequences of this historic event. Insight into the past and future of China's relationship to the WTO is offered by authors involved on both sides of the negotiations on the EU-China bilateral agreement of May 2000 and the on-going negotiations up to spring 2001. An analyst and representatives from four economic sectors (the automobile industry, telecommunications, insurance and banking) clash over their predictions for the future. Also presented is an investigation of the challenges for China's political, social and legal systems, and revealing prognoses are given for the implications for global trade and investment flows for the EU and Greater China, and for the modus operandi of the WTO itself. By shedding light on economic effects and social and legal implications, the book gives a comprehensive picture of potential challenges arising from China's entry to the WTO.

The Role of Trade in Ending Poverty looks at the complex relationships between economic growth, poverty reduction and trade, and examines the challenges that poor people face in benefiting from trade opportunities. Written jointly by the World Bank Group and the WTO, the publication examines how trade could make a greater contribution to ending poverty by increasing efforts to lower trade costs, improve the enabling environment, implement trade policy in conjunction with other areas of policy, better manage risks faced by the poor, and improve data used for policy-making.

Two high-level commissions—the Sutherland report in 2004, and the Warwick Commission report in 2007—addressed the future of the World Trade Organization and made proposals for incremental reform. This book goes further; it explains why institutional reform of the WTO is needed at this critical juncture in world history and provides innovative, practical proposals for modernizing the WTO to enable it to respond to the challenges of the twenty-first century. Contributors focus on five critical areas: transparency, decision- and rule-making procedures, internal management structures, participation by non-governmental organizations and civil society, and relationships with regional trade agreements. Co-published with the International Development Research Centre and the Centre for International Governance Innovation

The issues that increasingly dominate the 21st century cannot be solved by any single country acting alone, no matter how powerful. To manage the global economy, prevent runaway environmental destruction, reign in nuclear proliferation, or confront other global challenges, we must cooperate. But at the same time, our tools for global policymaking - chiefly state-to-state negotiations over treaties and international institutions - have broken down. The result is gridlock, which manifests across areas via a number of common mechanisms. The rise of new powers representing a more diverse array of interests makes agreement more difficult. The problems themselves have also grown harder as global policy issues penetrate ever more deeply into core domestic concerns. Existing institutions, created for a different world, also lock-in pathological decision-making procedures and render the field ever more complex. All of these processes - in part a function of previous, successful efforts at cooperation - have led global cooperation to fail us even as we need it most. Ranging over the main areas of global concern, from security to the global economy and the environment, this book examines these mechanisms of gridlock and pathways beyond them. It is written in a highly accessible way, making it relevant not only to students of politics and international relations but also to a wider general readership.

Who really runs the global economy? Who benefits most from it? The answer is a triad of 'governance institutions' - The IMF, the World Bank and the WTO. Globalization massively increased the power of these institutions and they drastically affected the livelihoods of peoples across the world. Yet they operate undemocratically and aggressively promote a particular kind of neoliberal capitalism. Under the 'Washington Consensus' they proposed, poverty was to be ended by increasing inequality. This new edition of Unholy Trinity, completely updated and revised, argues that neoliberal global capitalism has now entered a period of crisis so severe that governance will become impossible. Huge incomes for a small number of super-rich people produced an unstable global economy, rife with speculation and structurally prone to crises. The IMF is in disgrace, the WTO can hardly meet anymore and the World Bank survives as a global philanthropist. Is this the end for the Unholy Trinity?