Roman Grynberg

Liberalising Temporary Movement of Natural Persons: An Agenda for the Development Round

We discuss liberalising the temporary mobility of workers under Mode 4 of the GATS, particularly the movement of medium and low skilled service providers between developing and developed countries. Such mobility potentially offers huge returns: a flow equivalent to three per cent of developed countries? skilled and unskilled work forces would generate an estimated increase in world welfare of over US

WTO fisheries subsidies negotiations: implications for fisheries access arrangements and sustainable management

150 billion, shared fairly equally between developing and developed countries. The larger part of this emanates from the less-skilled, essentially because losing higher-skilled workers cuts output in developing countries severely. The mass migration of less skilled workers raises fears in developed countries for cultural identity, problems of assimilation and the drain on the public purse. These fears are hardly relevant to temporary movement, however. The biggest economic concern from temporary mobility is its competitive challenge to local less skilled workers. But as populations age and the average levels of training and education rise, developed countries will face an increasing scarcity of less skilled labour. Temporary mobility thus actually offers a strong communality of interest between developing and developed countries. The remainder of the paper looks at the GATS provisions on Mode 4 and the commitments that have been made under it. The paper reviews several official proposals for the Doha talks, including the very detailed one from India, and considers several countries? existing schemes for the temporary movement of foreign workers. Many countries have long had bilateral foreign worker programmes, and some regional agreements provide for liberal and flexible movement. These show what is feasible and how concerns can be overcome. We caution that, to be useful, any WTO agreement must increase mobility, not just bureaucratise it. The paper concludes with some modest and practical proposals. We suggest, inter alia, that licensing firms to arrange the movement of labour is the most promising short-term approach to increasing temporary mobility.

WTO at the Margins: Small vulnerable economy issues and the WTO

The paper considers the WTO negotiations on fisheries subsidies and the implications that envisaged disciplines will have on coastal developing countries. This is considered in relation to fisheries access agreements in the Central and Western Pacific where several least developed but resource rich island states such as Kiribati and Tuvalu are highly exposed to the risks associated with new WTO fisheries subsidies disciplines that do not consider their particular vulnerabilities. The paper considers some of the issues that coastal developing countries should incorporate into their emerging negotiating positions at the WTO. State-to-Sate fisheries access agreements which are often highly subsidised but where fishing vessel owners pay the equivalent of lump sum tax are paradoxically, the least distortionary and damaging to the environment. Strategies for managing the possible new disciplines are considered.

Liberalising Labour Mobility under the GATS

Introduction Since the second Ministerial Conference of the WTO held in Geneva in 1998 there has been an attempt by small, vulnerable economies (SVEs) to achieve some measure of recognition of the particular problems that confront them in the process of globalisation. At the failed Seattle Ministerial Conference the establishment of a work programme for small economies was agreed to by Members but as the draft text was not accepted it was left until the fourth session in Doha before a small economies work programme was agreed. This chapter addresses several issues pertaining to the apparent contradiction in the wording of the work programme agreed to at Doha, which on the one hand mandates Members to frame responses to trade concerns of small, vulnerable economies, but on the other prohibits the creation of a sub-category of states. The relevant paragraph of the Ministerial Declaration was a political compromise between the small economy proponents of the WTO work programme, and developed countries which insisted on the definitional caveat. It has created a conundrum of sorts for negotiators, as it seems impossible to target responses to the concerns of a group that is yet to be defined or recognised because WTO Members have consistently refused to recognise SVEs as a distinct category. While the creation of a WTO sub-category of Members is explicitly prohibited in the work programme, this does not nullify the right of any WTO Member or group of Members to make a proposal during negotiations that includes such a group of countries.