The WTO After Seattle [Paperback]

Jeffrey J. Schott (Author, Editor)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 27, 2000

The failure of the Seattle trade ministerial in December 1999 to launch a new round of multilateral trade negotiations dealt a major blow to the World Trade Organization (WTO). The Seattle meetings exposed significant policy differences among the WTO member countries as well as shortcomings in the manner in which the WTO conducts its business and interacts with other international and nongovernmental organizations.

The WTO after Seattle analyzes the problems and challenges facing the trading system in the aftermath of the Seattle ministerial. Leading trade experts examine why it is in the interests of both developed and developing countries to reengage in new trade talks, and how such talks could promote world trade and economic development, reform WTO operations, and strengthen public support for the trading system. The volume presents balanced perspectives on world trade problems by authors from the United States, Europe, Asia, and Latin America, with recommendations on what needs to be done in key areas to launch new talks. The authors address the WTO's existing mandate to negotiate on agriculture and services, as well as how to handle new issues such as investment, competition policy, e-commerce, and trade-related environmental and labor issues. The editor, Jeffrey J. Schott, provides a comprehensive overview of the issues before the WTO and what needs to be done to begin a new round.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Jeffrey J. Schott, Senior Fellow, was a Senior Associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace (1982-83) and an International Economist at the US Treasury (1974- 82). He is the author, coauthor, or editor of several books on the trading system, including Launching New Global Trade Talks: An Action Agenda (1998), Restarting Fast Track (1998), The World Trading System: Challenges Ahead (1996), The Uruguay Round: An Assessment (1994), Western Hemisphere Economic Integration (1994), NAFTA: An Assessment (rev. ed. 1993), North American Free Trade: Issues and Recommendations (1992), Completing the Uruguay Round: A Results-Oriented Approach to the GATT Trade Negotiations (1990), Free Trade Areas and U.S. Trade Policy (1989), The Canada-United States Free Trade Agreement: The Global Impact (1988), Auction Quotas and United States Trade Policy (1987), and Trading for Growth: The Next Round of Trade Negotiations (1985).

Product Details

• Paperback: 270 pages
• Publisher: Institute for International Economics (July 27, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0881322903
• ISBN-13: 978-0881322903
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 6 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 2.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,272,331 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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0 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars poor apologists for rich men's club, October 1, 2005

By 

Declan Hayes "Declan Hayes" (Tokyo Japan) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The WTO After Seattle (Paperback)

The World Trade Organization's 1999 meeting in Seattle has already gone down in history as the Battle of Seattle. Instead of discussing international trade issues, the participants looked on in horror as gangs of protesters wrecked the center of Seattle. Instead of sipping coffee in Starbuck's, they watched as the rioters gutted every Starbuck's outlet they could find. For some reason that this weighty book does not fully explain, people who protest against the WTO seem to hate Starbuck's.

The Institute for International Economics, which published this book, is probably above such venalities. Its Board of Directors includes some of the world's most influential figures including Conrad Black, Miguel de la Madrid, Nigel Lawson, Lee Kwan Yew, Paul O'Neill, David Rockefeller, Paul Krugman, George Schulz and even Alan Greenspan himself. Taken as a group, they certainly know their way around the corridors of power.

That being so, it is a pity that they do not seem to be able to write well. The book is a rather turgid discussion of the issues that should have been aired at Seattle. Spokespeople for the United States, the European Union and the world's other major economic powers are each given a separate chapter to themselves. So too are such less than inspiring topics as intellectual property, anti-dumping legislation and electronic commerce. If nothing else, the book will suit economics professors looking for additional dull readings to inflict upon their unsuspecting students.

Only two chapters enliven this otherwise comatose book. Surprisingly enough perhaps, the first of these is by Hisamitsu Arai from Japan's Ministry of International Trade and Industry (MITI). He begins by telling us that the Japanese delegation, like most others, had gone to Seattle with the best of intentions. The Japanese delegation, he tells us, went to Seattle, ready to debate the whole matrix of issues that are intertwined around international trade. The Japanese wanted to discuss not only the specific issues that concerned their American hosts but also the whole institutional and legal framework that continues to hold back international trade. MITI were intent on showing the United States some of the contradictions evident in their stance on a variety of issues. Whereas, for example, the United States objects to Japan and other countries dumping their products at below cost into the American market, Arai and his colleagues had evidence of 64 cases where the United States had dumped its own products into other market, Japan's included. MITI, whatever their faults may be, certainly do their homework.

As well as bringing up America's ambivalent attitude to its own shortcomings, Arai's chapter also raises another issue. That issue is Canada. He speaks of the Quadrilateral Group of Japan, the United States, the European Union and Canada. What is Canada, a very minor economic power doing in that august group and several others such as G7? Why Canada? Why not India for example?

Jayashree Watal, another contributor to this volume, would like to know. His contribution rails against the injustices mighty countries like his own India suffer from the great powers of Japan, the European Union and the United States as well as minnow powers like Canada. He sees the solution in putting development issues more to the center of future WTO debates.

But therein lies the rub. It would be nice if India could have as many outlets of Starbuck's, the Body Shop, McDonald's and Kingburger as mighty countries like Japan and the United States have. However, before such a thing can come to pass, India's per capital income would have to approach the levels pertaining in the United States, Japan and Europe. Because that is not likely to happen in the foreseeable future, trade referees like the WTO, turgid commentators like the Institute for International Economics and unfortunate targets like Starbuck's will continue to flourish. There are some important lessons failures in economics can teach us. Indonesia's ethnic and sectarian strife is a case in point. The WTO, along with the World Bank and the IMF, have a case to answer there. It would be nice if those bodies and the rent-a-mob Starbuck's haters who follow their meetings around addressed themselves to finding fair and equitable solutions to the seemingly intractable problems that eventuate when economic and other forces cause countries like Indonesia to implode. Books like this one that concentrate too much on hitting the right diplomatic keys and on not alienating any of their key sponsors only prolong the problems of global inequity they purport to address.