GATS and the Regulation of Trade in Services

This collection of essays takes stock of the key challenges that have arisen since the entry into force of the General Agreement on Trade in Services in the mid-1990s and situates them in the context of the WTO's Doha Development Agenda and the proliferation of preferential agreements addressing services today. The multidisciplinary approach provides an opportunity for many of the world's leading experts and a number of new analytical voices to exchange ideas on the future of services trade and regulation. Cosmopolitan approaches to the treatment of labour mobility, the shape of services trade disciplines in the digital age and pro-competitive regulation in air transport are explored with a view to helping readers gain a better understanding of the forces shaping the changes. An essential read for all those concerned with the evolution of the rules-based trading system and its impact on the service economy.

European Union Meets South Korea: Bureaucratic Interests, Exporter Discrimination and the Negotiations of Trade Agreements

Who in the European Union drives the process of pursuing bilateral trade negotiations? In contrast to societal explanations, this article develops a novel argument as to how the European Commission manages the process and uses its position in strategic ways to pursue its interests. Rooted in principal–agent theory, the article discusses agent preferences and theorizes the conditions under which the agent sets specific focal points and interacts strategically with principals and third parties. The argument is discussed with case study evidence drawn from the first trade agreement concluded and ratified since the EU Commission announced its new strategy in 2006: the EU–South Korea trade agreement

Transition and Justice: Negotiating the Terms of New Beginnings in Africa

Transition and Justice examines a series of cases from across the African continent where peaceful ‘new beginnings’ were declared after periods of violence and where transitional justice institutions helped define justice and the new socio-political order. Offers a new perspective on transition and justice in Africa transcending the institutional limits of transitional justice Covers a wide range of situations, and presents a broad range of sites where past injustices are addressed Examines cases where peaceful ‘new beginnings’ have been declared after periods of violence Addresses fundamental questions about transitions and justice in societies characterized by a high degree of external involvement and internal fragmentation

An Enabling Regulatory Environment for Sustainable Investment: The Example of Trade Law

There is broad international agreement that investment flows to the agricultural sector in developing countries need to be increased. But there is also agreement that such investments need to be sustainable. For being sustainable, they must not only be beneficial to the public economy, but also to rural households and to the environment in the short and the long run. Whether sustainable investments take place, not least depends on the legal framework within which these investments are situated. This is true for the domestic legal frameworks of both the home country and of the host country of the investment. But also the international legal frameworks in which home and host states are embedded set either positive or negative incentives for investments to be sustainable. The paper presents an overview on regulatory frameworks which come to focus in this regard. It then elaborates on international agricultural trade regulation, by assuming that sustainable investments in agriculture presume a ‘sustainable trade regime’. By doing so, the paper presents parts of the debate about a sustainable agricultural trade regime, as it has been resumed and further developed by the author in recent years. Key words. Agricultural sector, sustainable investment, regulatory environment, sustainable trade regime.

A Biofilm Pocket Model to Evaluate Different Non-Surgical Periodontal Treatment Modalities in Terms of Biofilm Removal and Reformation, Surface Alterations and Attachment of Periodontal Ligament Fibroblasts.

BACKGROUND AND AIM There is a lack of suitable in vitro models to evaluate various treatment modalities intending to remove subgingival bacterial biofilm. Consequently, the aims of this in vitro-study were: a) to establish a pocket model enabling mechanical removal of biofilm and b) to evaluate repeated non-surgical periodontal treatment with respect to biofilm removal and reformation, surface alterations, tooth hard-substance-loss, and attachment of periodontal ligament (PDL) fibroblasts. MATERIAL AND METHODS Standardized human dentin specimens were colonized by multi-species biofilms for 3.5 days and subsequently placed into artificially created pockets. Non-surgical periodontal treatment was performed as follows: a) hand-instrumentation with curettes (CUR), b) ultrasonication (US), c) subgingival air-polishing using erythritol (EAP) and d) subgingival air-polishing using erythritol combined with chlorhexidine digluconate (EAP-CHX). The reduction and recolonization of bacterial counts, surface roughness (Ra and Rz), the caused tooth substance-loss (thickness) as well as the attachment of PDL fibroblasts were evaluated and statistically analyzed by means of ANOVA with Post-Hoc LSD. RESULTS After 5 treatments, bacterial reduction in biofilms was highest when applying EAP-CHX (4 log10). The lowest reduction was found after CUR (2 log10). Additionally, substance-loss was the highest when using CUR (128±40 µm) in comparison with US (14±12 µm), EAP (6±7 µm) and EAP-CHX (11±10) µm). Surface was roughened when using CUR and US. Surfaces exposed to US and to EAP attracted the highest numbers of PDL fibroblasts. CONCLUSION The established biofilm model simulating a periodontal pocket combined with interchangeable placements of test specimens with multi-species biofilms enables the evaluation of different non-surgical treatment modalities on biofilm removal and surface alterations. Compared to hand instrumentation the application of ultrasonication and of air-polishing with erythritol prevents from substance-loss and results in a smooth surface with nearly no residual biofilm that promotes the reattachment of PDL fibroblasts.

Towards a spatial understanding of trade-offs in sustainable development: A meso-scale analysis of the nexus between land use, poverty, and environment in the Lao PDR

In land systems, equitably managing trade-offs between planetary boundaries and human development needs represents a grand challenge in sustainability oriented initiatives. Informing such initiatives requires knowledge about the nexus between land use, poverty, and environment. This paper presents results from Lao PDR, where we combined nationwide spatial data on land use types and the environmental state of landscapes with village-level poverty indicators. Our analysis reveals two general but contrasting trends. First, landscapes with paddy or permanent agriculture allow a greater number of people to live in less poverty but come at the price of a decrease in natural vegetation cover. Second, people practising extensive swidden agriculture and living in intact environments are often better off than people in degraded paddy or permanent agriculture. As poverty rates within different landscape types vary more than between landscape types, we cannot stipulate a land use–poverty–environment nexus. However, the distinct spatial patterns or configurations of these rates point to other important factors at play. Drawing on ethnicity as a proximate factor for endogenous development potentials and accessibility as a proximate factor for external influences, we further explore these linkages. Ethnicity is strongly related to poverty in all land use types almost independently of accessibility, implying that social distance outweighs geographic or physical distance. In turn, accessibility, almost a precondition for poverty alleviation, is mainly beneficial to ethnic majority groups and people living in paddy or permanent agriculture. These groups are able to translate improved accessibility into poverty alleviation. Our results show that the concurrence of external influences with local—highly contextual—development potentials is key to shaping outcomes of the land use–poverty–environment nexus. By addressing such leverage points, these findings help guide more effective development interventions. At the same time, they point to the need in land change science to better integrate the understanding of place-based land indicators with process-based drivers of land use change.

Towards a new balance of trade in agriculture

Trade in agriculture is linked to a whole range of economic, environmental, societal and future interests. For this reason, international regulation of trade in agricultural goods is highly contentious. While mainly directed towards an opening of markets, the WTO Agreement on Agriculture also has some entry points for ‘non trade concerns’. However, the agreement still looks like a casual patchwork that allows rather unsystematic ally for exemptions, without explicitly exposing the grounds that allow for them. The question arises of how the agreement could be drafted in a more structured way, in order to make sure that the economic objectives are efficiently pursued, and at the same time that human rights and environmental concerns are adequately taken account of? The concept of sustainable development provides for a methodical ‘seven step’ framework that gives guidance on integrated decision making processes. In this paper, this framework is partially applied to the Agreement on Agriculture. This working paper served as an introductory note to a brainstorming workshop on the subject that took place on 27 March 2009 at the World Trade Institute, University of Bern.