Erin Hannah

The WTO in Bali: What MC9 Means for the Doha Development Agenda and Why it Matters?

The conclusion of the World Trade Organization’s (wto) ninth ministerial meeting – held in Bali 3–7 December 2013 – is at one and the same time momentous, marginal and business-as-usual. It is momentous because it marks the first multilateral agreement reached in the wto since the organisation began operations on 1 January 1995; it is marginal because the deal reached will have only a limited impact on the global trading system; and it is business as usual because the Bali package will be of disproportionally greater value to the industrial states than to their developing and least developed counterparts. We examine what happened in Bali, covering the principal issues at stake and the content of the outcome, what this means for the wto and for the Doha Development Agenda (dda), and why it all matters. We argue that, while the Bali ministerial is significant and the agreements reached important, the conclusion of the meeting and the package agreed represent only a limited movement forward in addressing the fundamental problems and inequities of the wto system.

NGOs and the European Union: Examining the Power of Epistemes in the EC's TRIPS and Access to Medicines Negotiations

The European Union (EU) stands out among the major trading powers for its significant and dramatic response to new demands for access and participation in its external trade policymaking process. A spectacular range of mechanisms designed to increase the involvement of civil society organizations, including non-governmental organizations (NGOs), have been introduced recently. This article examines whether these new political opportunities in the EU have an impact on the trade processes and policy outcomes by revisiting a case that has been celebrated as indicative of the potential of global civil society to promote social justice—the Access to Medicines campaign. The findings show that although NGOs were instrumental in providing education, raising awareness, and giving a voice to broader societal concerns about the social and health-related aspects of the proposed trade deals, their impact on policy outcomes was limited. EU policymakers did not pursue policies that placed public health concerns over stringent intellectual property right protection, despite NGO involvement in the external trade policymaking process. I argue that the robust liberal and legal epistemic foundations of the international trade regime effectively hamstrung NGO efforts to move the external trade policies in more sustainable and just directions. These findings have broad implications for the power of epistemes and their ability to enable and delimit NGO agency in global economic governance.

Zombies and IR: A Critical Reading

The zombie genre is quickly becoming a feature of International Relations (IR) classrooms and pedagogical toolkits as scholars enthusiastically embrace the undead as a vehicle for teaching the discipline. This article offers a cautionary note on a generally positive move to embrace the use of zombieism in IR. It shows how an uncritical use of a zombie apocalypse as a vehicle for teaching IR can reinforce existing divisions in the field, essentialise country positions, crowd out heterodox approaches, reinforce gender stereotypes and dehumanise people. To guard against these problems, the article shows how Zombie IR can be better used to think critically and normatively about world politics.

The WTO in Nairobi: the demise of the Doha Development Agenda and the future of the multilateral trading system

This article offers a full-length evaluation of the World Trade Organization’s (WTO) decisive December 2015 Nairobi ministerial conference. It examines the dynamics of the meeting, the emergence of a new negotiating mode, and the contestations between key developing and developed members; it explores the substance of the deal negotiated; and it reflects on the future capacity of the WTO to serve as a means of securing trade gains for developing and least developed countries. Three arguments are advanced. First, the use of a new mode of negotiating brought participation and consensus into the core of the Nairobi talks, but it also resulted in an agreement that moves away from the pursuit of universal agreements to one wherein more narrowly focused piecemeal deals can be brokered. Second, the package of trade measures agreed continues an established pattern of asymmetrical trade deals that favour developed members over their developing and least developed counterparts. Third, Nairobi alters fundamentally the likely shape of future WTO deals with significant consequences for developing country trade gains. The likely result is that while Nairobi will energise the multilateral system it will do so in a way that is of questionable value to developing and least developed countries.

Reforming WTO-civil society engagement

Civil society organizations are often seen as playing a crucial role in helping to mitigate the exclusion of weaker states, giving voice to marginalized communities, and raising environmental and developmental concerns within the trade system. The politicization and demystification of the global trade agenda by civil society also opens up space for a more diverse set of actors to influence trade negotiations. This article examines the evolution of the WTO secretariats engagement with civil society within this context and argues that the dominant mode of engagement, as manifest in WTO Public Forums and civil society participation in ministerial conferences, is no longer fit for purpose. Rather it reflects an outmoded strategy that once served to underscore the existence and value of the WTO as an international organization and works to neutralize political contestation and publicly promote the benefits of free trade. It is now in need of reform.

Power, knowledge and resistance: between co-optation and revolution in global trade

ABSTRACT It has been recognised that the process of multilateral trade negotiations has been fundamentally altered by the increased involvement of non-governmental organisations (NGOs) since the Uruguay Round. NGOs have helped to increase the voice of the developing world, nullify some of the asymmetries in political power vis-à-vis the rich world, and provide trade analysis to bolster participation. What is less recognised is the growing importance of certain international governmental organisations (IGOs) that provide demand driven advocacy through the provision of knowledge and expertise to developing states that, at times, challenges the dominant neoliberal agenda at the WTO. Unlike NGOs, many of these organisations are able to hold observer status on WTO committees and write member state submissions. Yet, ideologically and in terms of their specific capacity-building functions, these organisations are also distinct from other IGOs operating in the area of global trade. Through everyday actions, ‘insider’ IGOs such as the South Centre and United Nations Conference on Trade and Development undertake work that redresses imbalances of power in global economic governance and transforms the ‘common sense’ underlying trade practices. In this paper, we develop a set of ideal types aimed at unpacking and illuminating the variegated degrees and types of ‘resistance’ exercised within the international trade system.

The WTO in Buenos Aires: the outcome and its significance for the future of the multilateral trading system

The conclusion of the World Trade Organization’s (WTO) Buenos Aires ministerial conference (10-13 December 2017) was immediately celebrated and derided in equal measure. For its supporters, Buenos Aires opened the way toward negotiations in e-commerce, investment facilitation for development, and measures designed to help micro, small and medium sized enterprises (MSMEs). For its detractors, the meeting underscored the gridlock that continues to blight the WTO’s negotiating function and underlined the organisation’s declining credibility as a mechanism for governing global trade. In this paper we provide one of the first full length critical evaluations of the Buenos Aires conference and its outcome. In so doing, we offer answers to three questions. What accounts for such dramatically different assessments of the meeting’s outcome? How should the outcome be interpreted? What is its significance for the future of the WTO and the multilateral trading system? We argue that the meeting’s outcome was indeed significant. It has consolidated the process of reconfiguring the WTO’s negotiating function; and it enables members to tackle more effectively a range of pressing economic and social issues as well as to navigate blockers and blockages in the negotiations. However, it also poses challenges for the WTO’s poorest constituents.