The WTO in crisis: lessons learned from the Doha negotiations on the environment

Even before the Doha Round of international trade talks in the World Trade Organisation (WTO) had been suspended in July 2006, there was little sign of progress in the negotiations on the relationship between WTO rules and multilateral environmental agreements (MEAs). If the Round is resumed, this and many other important issues on the WTO agenda will have to take a back seat while the big ticket items—agriculture and market access—are resolved. Meanwhile, governments acting outside the WTO will continue to agree to new MEA commitments that relate to trade policy without a clear understanding of how the design and implementation of those commitments is affected by WTO rules. This article examines some of the options for governments to clarify the relationship between WTO rules and ME As, both inside and outside the WTO. It sets out the nature and experience of the relationship, before examining ways in which governments in the WTO and in the UN system could work towards better global governance of trade and sustainable development.     

21世纪协调全球贸易与环境的基本原则

本文从总结国际贸易领域面临的环境问题和逐步恶化的趋势入手,分析了协调国际贸易与环境的迫切性和可能性,在此基础上提出了21世纪协调全球环境与贸易发展的五大基本原则,即贸易自由化原则;有区别的承担环境责任的原则;利用宏观经济政策推进区域可持续发展原则;贸易政策与环境政策的逐步标准化管理原则;尊重发展中国家的发展权利与生存权利原则。     

After Seattle: Free Trade and the WTO

After the debacle in Seattle at the WTO Ministerial meeting in 1999, when the member countries failed to launch a new round of multilateral trade negotiations, new challenges to both free trade and the WTO have acquired importance. The former can be met by confronting the conceptual confusions, unfounded fears and policy-design sloppiness that afflict many of the demands of the critics. The latter, however, require changes in the WTO's functioning. But a distinction must be made among three areas: trade negotiations, the secretariat's work, and the dispute settlement mechanism. Each requires a different treatment.     

Aid for trade and ecologically sustainable development in Australia’s international aid program

In September 2015, Australia, along with 193 member states of the United Nations, signed the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. The facilitation of international trade and increasing foreign aid for developing countries were emphasised as crucial means for achieving the Sustainable Development Goals. An important role was assigned to the international Aid for Trade initiative, which is about stimulating economic growth in developing countries through removing constraints to trade. Australia has been a strong supporter of the Aid for Trade initiative since it was launched at the World Trade Organization’s Ministerial Conference in Hong Kong in 2005. Aid for trade has become a central plank of the ‘new development paradigm’ of Australia’s international aid program. This article analyses the conceptualisation and practice of aid for trade in Australia’s aid, with a focus on how it links to ecologically sustainable development. It argues that Australia’s aid for trade is reinforcing the neo-liberal development paradigm in which environmental dimensions are overall neglected and private sector development and free trade are prioritised. In order to achieve international and national development goals of poverty reduction and sustainable development, environmental sustainability needs to be fully integrated into the growing aid for trade portfolio of Australia’s international aid.     

世界遗产:现代人类中心主义的实证

面对全球性的生态危机,人类中心主义遭到种种质疑,现代人类中心主义应运而生。现代人类中心主义的产生与可持续发展战略的提出不仅具有时间上的相关性,而且具有相同的问题背景,二者的价值取向有着惊人的一致。只有自觉地坚持现代人类中心主义,人类才有可能有效地实施可持续发展战略,实现真正意义上的可持续发展。现代人类中心主义在实践上的全面落实是一个相当长的历史过程,在当前历史条件下,世界遗产为现代人类中心主义提供了实证,并可望成为实现现代人类中心主义的典范。     

国际贸易与环境协调发展的难点和出路

本文分析了国际贸易与环境冲突的现状、原因,探讨了解决贸易与环境冲突面临的困难,在此基础上提出了协调贸易与环境出路的5个方面,即建立国际贸易环境成本内化核算体系;建立可持续性的补偿基金;建立以贸易与环境协定为准则的多边合作机制;建立各国"环境标志制度"的统一标准化管理体系;建构环境与贸易协调的全球法律和价值伦理体系。     

Australian trade policy in an age of globalisation

Arguably, the world trading system has entered a period of greater change and uncertainty in the past two years than at any time since the end of the Cold War. At the same time, Australia faces a range of internal and external challenges to its trade policy, while having lost many of the old 'certainties' guiding its trade agenda. This article identifies four major challenges confronting Australian trade policy now and into the future: the EU agenda to inject self-serving 'governance' mechanisms into the WTO; rises in the demands and influence of developing countries within the WTO; the new trend towards bilateral free trade areas; and increasing opposition to globalisation by groups within society. It assesses the capacity of Australia's trade bureaucracy to manage these issues, warning against expecting too much of the trade policy agenda, particularly in relation to the role it plays within domestic politics in Australia.     

Urban Planning and Sustainable Development

Following the discourse about sustainable development based on the Brundtland Commission's report and the processes in the UN Committee on Environment and Development, a sustainable urban development would require considerably more ambitious policies than today in order to limit energy consumption, reduce pollution and protect natural areas and arable land. Re-use of urban areas and more effective utilization of building sites is a possible strategy to this end. However, continuous growth in the building stock will make it increasingly difficult to bring urban development in wealthy countries within the frames of what is ecologically sustainable and equitable in a global perspective. Planning for a sustainable urban development must be oriented towards long-term goals and utilize knowledge about the environmental consequences of different solutions, but should not be based solely on means-ends rationality. Rather than aiming at consensus including all stakeholder groups, planning for sustainability should facilitate alliance-building among those population groups who can support the basic equity and environmental values of a sustainable development.     

Agriculture,Trade and Sustainability

In recent decades there has been growing concern about the combined undesired consequences of rapid economic growth, based on the free market movement, and developments in science and technology. This concern has placed the sustainable development concept on the world's agenda. The notion of sustainability, which originally referred mostly to the environmental consequences of human activities, along with their economic and social aspects, has been discussed not only at the national and the global levels but also in relation to particular sectors of the economy. One such sector is agriculture, which to be sustainable must be ecologically sound, economically viable, and socially responsible. Unless current trade and agricultural policies are geared to creating such a structure, sustainability will be no more than a myth in the industrialized and globalized world, while considerable numbers of people will be left struggling with hunger and poverty. Ethical, fair trade and ecologic agricultural practices, such as organic farming, have been suggested as alternatives to existing practices. However, with their current and potential size, these alternatives cannot compete with existing production and trade systems. But these alternatives nevertheless highlight the main problems of current day free trade and industrialized agriculture structures and their related solutions.

This paper reviews the concepts of sustainable development and sustainable agriculture: it raises the question whether the world-wide free market economy is really free, and it considers the undesired consequences of this economy by focusing on the relationship between sustainable agriculture and agriculture-related trade policies.     

Bringing Workers’ Rights Back In? Propositions towards a Labour–Trade Linkage for the Global South

The idea of forging a linkage between global trade and labour standards has a long history and has been the subject of fierce debate. In a global political economy that incites ‘competition for jobs’, the idea cannot escape controversy. Crucially, it has failed to win significant support from trade unionists in the global South. Drawing on viewpoints voiced by workers’ rights activists in South Africa and Brazil, this article presents four propositions on the features and functions that a labour–trade linkage would have to possess if it is to serve workers’ interests, and explores whether and how these may be accommodated by the ILO and WTO regimes. It is argued that a linkage requiring a new single WTO undertaking is out of the question; a linkage would only make sense if it superimposes ILO rule onto the WTO, not the opposite; a linkage should be premised on positive trade measures; and, finally, it should serve the interests of presently unprotected and unorganized workers. Overall, the main challenge of such a linkage would be to achieve the necessary reform within the ILO.     

Restructuring the Post-Cold War World Economy: Perspectives and a Prognosis

In exploring the consequences of changes in Eastern Europe for Western Europe, the Third World and the global economic order, this article examines the need for economic management which is more solidly based on the new theory of international trade, and which extends beyond the national level. The rapidly deteriorating situation in Eastern Europe and the Gulf crisis both form valuable examples of the problems and opportunities ahead. There is a clear move towards the formation of regional blocs such as the European Community, the intention of which is to strengthen the industrial countries against the uncertainties and risks involved in the current reshaping of the world order by multipolarity, as well as in the growing nationalist tensions and movements for national independence. This article will argue that bloc formation is bound to either further marginalize the majority of developing countries, or increase their dependence on the few regional centres that are emerging.     

International development in transition

International development is in a period of transition. While the outcome of this is still unclear, this article argues that there are at least four areas in which the project of international development is changing. First, there is a debate, especially within the World Bank, about development strategy and how we think about development, particularly in terms of the balance between states and markets. This is evident in the debate over state failure and the new structural economics. Second, there is increasing evidence of a shift in lending, away from projects of ‘small’ human development, perhaps best encapsulated by the United Nations Millennium Development Goals, towards more transformative ‘big’ development projects such as infrastructure. Third, ‘non‐traditional’ aid donors and new forms of private philanthropy are playing a more significant role in development financing and this, in turn, offers developing countries a new range of choices about what kinds of development assistance they receive. Fourth, aid relations are changing as a result of the renewed agency of developing states, particularly in sub‐Saharan Africa, and shifts towards increased South–South cooperation are growing as evidenced by increased funding from regional development banks and increased trade flows. The article reviews these changes and suggests a series of questions and challenges that arise from them for analysts of international development, developing countries and traditional aid donors.     

A Market Road to Sustainable Agriculture? Ecological Agriculture,Green Food and Organic Agriculture in China

To the extent that free markets show little concern for the existence of externalities, they are unlikely to produce optimum outcomes with regard to the protection and enhancement of the natural environment. Accordingly, the increasing emphasis on markets to deliver development in China under Deng Xiaoping and his successors has the capacity to threaten the long‐term environmental sustainability of that development. While there are good reasons to remain sceptical about the ability of market mechanisms to promote sustainable rural development in many respects, market reforms in China and the opening of the country to the outside world have nevertheless provided opportunities for farmers to engage in ecologically sensitive agriculture in the form of ‘green’ food and organic farming. Given that these forms of agriculture reduce farmers’ use of chemicals compared to conventional farming — chemicals which are costly to produce and environmentally degrading to use — they contribute to ensuring a more environmentally sustainable future for Chinese farming, post‐WTO entry, whilst providing opportunities for farmers to enrich themselves at the same time: a ‘win–win’ state of affairs. This will remain the case, however, only so long as the state is prepared to create and reinforce appropriate institutional arrangements.     

中国产业在东亚的优势及结构调整

中国产业的发展已进入了按国际分工构来选择和实施战略性调整的关键时期。本文采用比较优势指数及贸易特化系数,分析了中国与东亚各国和地区贸易中工业制品的比较优势及竞争优势的状况,指出中国与东亚的产业国际分工的特征、竞争与互补关系以及如何重构中国产业竞争优势的问题。     

关于我国环境税收法制建设的思考

随着我国经济发展步伐的加快,环境污染问题也日益严重,而我国现行环境税费制度存在较多问题,不能很好地起到防治污染、保护环境的作用。本文在分析我国设立环境税的价值基础上,探讨了我国环境税收方面存在的诸多问题并提出相关法律对策。     

Post COVID-19 ecological and social reset: moving away from capitalist growth models towards tourism as Buen Vivir

Abstract

Tourism has been one of the industries most highly affected by COVID-19. The COVID-19 global pandemic is an ‘unprecedented crisis’ and has exposed the pitfalls of a hyper consumption model of economic growth and development. The scale of immediate economic impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic has shattered the myth of ‘catch up development’ and ‘perpetual growth’. The Crisis has brought unintended degrowth, presenting opportunities for an economic and social ‘reset’. In terms of long-term thinking post COVID-19, it is time to change the parameters of how we imagine a trajectory going forward, to prefigure possibilities for contesting capitalist imperatives that ‘there is no alternative’. In relation to tourism, the pandemic provides an opportunity for reimaging tourism otherwise, away from exploitative models that disregard people, places, and the natural environment, and towards a tourism that has positive impacts. Non-western alternatives to neo-colonial and neoliberal capitalism, such the South American concept of ‘Buen Vivir’, can help us to shift priorities away from economic growth, towards greater social and environmental wellbeing, and meaningful human connections. Taking a Buen Vivir approach to tourism will continue the degrowth momentum, for transformative change in society within the earth’s physical limits. Yet Buen Vivir also redefines the parameters of how we understand ‘limits’. In limiting unsustainable practices in development and tourism, a focus on Buen Vivir actually creates growth in other areas, such as social and environmental wellbeing, and meaningful human connection. Buen Vivir can reorient the tourism industry towards localised tourism, and slow tourism because the principles of Buen Vivir require these alternatives to be small-scale, local and benefiting host communities as well as tourists to increase the wellbeing for all.     

Remaking the architecture: the emerging powers,self‐insuring and regional insulation

This article examines the interaction between the emerging and traditional powers in global governance reform, and asks whether we are heading towards an international financial system that is more fragmented, where power is more diffused and national and regional arrangements play a more prominent role, at the expense of global multilateral institutions. It begins with a brief discussion of the global systemic and country‐specific factors that motivate Brazil, China and other emerging countries to accumulate large currency reserves. We find that national arrangements for managing financial and currency crises will continue to hold sway for emerging countries in the wake of the global crisis. However, the actual capacity of regional arrangements in managing future financial crises is uncertain, and the significance of regional alternatives in the emerging architecture should not be overstated. The real capacity of East Asian regional arrangements to manage financial crises, payments problems or currency attacks is still untested, and key thresholds in multilateralization still lie ahead. In South America, multilateral lender‐of‐last‐resort support inside the region is largely confined to the sub‐regional level and is limited by Brazil's reticence. Enduring reliance on bilateral measures for financial crisis management is noted. Where there has been progress in regional solutions, since the global crisis, has been in the role of regional development banks in providing financing for developing countries to enact counter‐cyclical policies. Such support also provides insulation for states in the region against the contagion effects of international financial crisis. We are in the midst of transitioning to a more diverse and multi‐tiered global financial and monetary system. A reformed IMF could have a role to play in addressing global imbalances and encouraging a shift from national reserves to collective insurance, however, it would be preconditioned by significant shifts in the policy, lending operations, and internal governance of the Fund, and willingness among the G20 to strike a new consensus on how to deal with imbalances, and new accommodation on acceptable reserve levels.     

Sustainable Development, Rolled‐out Neoliberalism and Sustainable Communities

Recent contributions by geographers on the relationships between states and citizens have documented the rise of rolled‐out neoliberalism. Development agendas are, it is argued, increasingly dominated by the principles of market‐driven reforms, social inequality, and a drive towards enhancing the economic competitiveness of the supply side of the economy. However, at the same time, a parallel set of discourses has emerged in the development literature which argues that it is principles of sustainable development that have, in practice, become dominant. The emphasis is, instead, on democratic empowerment, environmental conservation, and social justice. This paper examines the relationships between these ostensibly very different interpretations of contemporary development with an assessment of one of the Labour government's most ambitious planning agendas—the publication in February 2003 of the document Sustainable Communities: Building for the Future . The proposals are promoted as a "step change" in the planning system with a new emphasis on tackling shortages of housing in the South East and reviving the economy of the Thames Gateway area. The paper assesses the different ways in which such programmes can be interpreted and argues that contemporary development practices in countries such as Britain are constituted by a hybridity of approaches and rationalities and cannot be reduced to simple characterisations of rolled‐out neoliberalism or sustainable development.     

The Global Economic Crisis and China's Foreign Trade

Two noted academic specialists on China's economic geography are joined by a research assistant to examine the impact of the current global economic crisis and recession on China's trade with the rest of the world. Relying on statistics collected by the country's customs administration through the first half of 2009, the authors identify and analyze trends in China's imports and exports (detailing countries of origin and destination) as well as balance of trade. They also develop and present an input-output model in order to gain a more precise understanding of the country's trade dependence (both before and during the crisis) than afforded by analyses based on conventional statistics, and explore some of the implications of the decline in trade on levels of domestic unemployment.     

东北亚地缘政治特点与中韩经贸合作趋势

本文在简述亚太及东北亚地区战略格局的基础上,分析了东北亚地区的地缘政治的两个特点,探讨评价了中韩两国经贸合作的基础、原因,取得的成绩以及存在的不足,指出了两国今后经贸合作的趋势与方向。