Developing Countries and the WTO: Policy Approaches

Citation

At'tarawneh, M.A. (2008), "Developing Countries and the WTO: Policy Approaches", Journal of International Trade Law and Policy, Vol. 7 No. 1, pp. 92-93. https://doi.org/10.1108/14770020810918228

Developing countries comprise a majority of the WTO membership and they are grouped as “developing countries” and “least developed countries”. Although the WTO is purportedly seen as a democratic institution, it is still dominated by the leading industrialized countries and by the corporations of these countries. Therefore, the logic of commercial trade saturates the WTO and the development goals articulated when GATT was first formed have been put aside and wrongly assumed to be the natural consequence of increased trade. For this reason, ambitious, realistic and development‐friendly policy reforms are needed.

This book encompasses a number of ambitious contributions of economists and lawyers on the most major concerns of developing countries under the current WTO system. The main intent of this book is to examine a cross‐section of critical issues facing developing countries, with the objective of offering policy prescriptions that are both ambitious and realistic. Part I of this book addresses many concerns regarding the improvement of the market access of developing countries in services, agriculture and non‐agriculture goods. Part II discusses and evaluates the special and differential treatment for developing countries under the WTO and call for the need of a different approach. Part III deals with three examples of challenges that face the efficacy of the multilateral trading system. The first example is the proliferation of preferential trading arrangements which may fragment the rule‐based trading system built on the founding stone of non‐discrimination. The second challenge is the difficulty of the implementation of non‐commercial goals and social standards such as environmental protection, labor standards and human rights. Finally, some of the WTO agreements could be seen to be unfair and lead to the loss of confidence in the whole system. TRIPs protection is reviewed in this context. Part IV examines two very important and very practical issues in far as developing countries are concerned. The first is the WTO dispute settlement system and the second is the WTO negotiations and trade facilitations.

The most impressive feature of this work is the wide range of specialist areas of expertise that are covered from both legal and economic viewpoint.

Whilst economic issues and areas of policy reforms comprise the majority of this work, there are few legal articles of the book that should not be overlooked.

Also, the book is well organized, clearly written and serves its intended audience.