Trade, Development and Dispute Settlement in the Developing World: MFN v Developing Country Exceptions in the WTO
Presentation
Overview
Overview
Description
The Uruguay Round Agreement (URA) led to the highly legalistic World Trade Organization (WTO) and demanded significant trade liberalization commitments. While this was perceived as creating a level-playing field for the developing nations, the demands of implementing accession commitments were considerable as development issues continued to plague the majority of WTO members. The thesis argues that within the Uruguay Round and the WTO an unresolved tension exists between multilateral non-discriminatory trade and the continued necessity for, and increase in both Special and Differential Treatment (SDT) provisions and the largely political unilateral preference programs allowed under the Generalized System of Preferences. The thesis maps out these tensions and explores whether and how this has affected the amount and pattern of usage of the DSB by developing and least developed countries. I suggest that the political nature of unilateral preference programs may be one factor contributing to the low usage of the dispute resolution mechanism, by particularly, least developed countries. Moreover, where there are SDT provisions across GATT and WTO Agreements, they were rarely invoked in cases brought by or against developing countries. As the thesis then explores, the use of developing country exceptions in any case brought to the DSB has been limited in guaranteeing an outcome favorable to developing nations on the exception basis alone.
