The Facilitation of trade in some integration agreements in the Americas

This article reviews the main progress observed as regards facilitation of trade in the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), the Andean Community (CAN), the Central American Common Market (CACM) and the Caribbean Community (CARICOM). The article does not refer to the Southern Common Market (Mercosur) or the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA), these integration agreements being dealt with in FAL Bulletins Nos. 171 and 175, respectively.

Energy Consumption and Efficiency: Emerging Challenges from Reefer Trade in South American Container Terminals

This issue of the FAL Bulletin discusses the relevance of energy consumption as a basis for identifying energy efficiency potential and calculating the carbon footprints of ports and terminals in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC), focusing on the Southern Cone countries of Argentina, Chile, Paraguay and Uruguay.

Trade and Development Nexus: reflections on the performance of trade in goods under the Cariforum-European Union Partnership agreement a Cariforum perspective

Given the asymmetry in the levels of development and capacity which exist between the EU and CARIFORUM States, the architects of the CARIFORUM-European Union (EU) Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA)1 anticipated the need for review and monitoring of the impacts of implementation. Article 5 and other provisions in the Agreement therefore specifically mandate that monitoring be undertaken to ensure that the Agreement benefits a wide cross-section of the population in member countries. The paper seeks to provide a preliminary assessment of the impact of the EPA on CARIFORUM countries. In so doing, it highlights some critical information and implementation gaps and challenges that have emerged during the implementation process. The analysis however, is restricted to goods trade. The services sector will be the subject of a separate report. The paper draws on a combination of quantitative and qualitative analyses. While the paper undertakes a CARIFORUM-wide analysis for the most part, five CARIFORUM member states including Barbados, Dominican Republic, Guyana, Saint Kitts and Nevis and Saint Lucia are examined more closely in some instances. These economies were selected by virtue of economic structure and development constraints, as a representative subset of CARIFORUM, which comprises the CARICOM membership as well as the Dominican Republic.

The traceability/trackability of illegal trade in whale products: a proposal to evaluate the technical functionality of DNA registers

The Government of Japan, through the Institute for Cetacean Research (Tokyo), has established a DNA register for whales taken under special permit or otherwise destined for commercial markets (IWC 2005; IWC 2010a). The functionality of this DNA register, for the purposes of traceability/trackability, is critical to the current negotiations on the future of the IWC (IWC 2010b). Here we request access to the DNA register for 3 species of whales (fin, sei and Antarctic minke) for the purposes of tracking the origins of whale products purchased at commercial outlets in Seoul, South Korea and Santa Monica, US, as described in the Baker et al. (2010). The attached proposal was included as Supplementary Material to this published article and submitted for consideration to the IWC Data Availability Group (DAG) on 12 April 2010. However, the DAG declined to forward the proposal to the data holders, recommending that we “wait until the Scientific Committee has reviewed the proposed DNA register/market sampling text in the draft Consensus Decision in accordance with the Commission's instructions and then reported to the Commission itself” (email 16 May 2010). We assume that this will take place at SC/62 in Agadir and request that this proposal be considered for endorsement by the DNA subcommittee.

Politics and Trade in the Former Soviet Union

Fifteen independent countries emerged from the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1989-91. Aside from the Russian Federation, the former Soviet Republics lie in four geographic regions: the Caucasus (Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia); Central Asia (Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan); the Baltics (Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania); and Eastern Europe (Belarus, Moldova, Ukraine).

Impacts of Trade in Non-timber Forest Products on Cooperation among Caboclo Households of the Brazilian Amazon

Trade in non-timber forest products (NTFPs) has been touted as promoting forest conservation and enhancing the well-being of local residents through increased cash income, which is considered a positive outcome. However, research on cooperation has demonstrated that increased market access and income may strengthen or weaken cooperation. Because cooperation is essential for community resilience in small-scale societies, negative effects on people's well-being can be expected if increased NTFP trade reduces cooperation. To evaluate whether NTFP trade affected cooperation, we used household data (survey and systematic observations) to compare the frequency of cooperation in two communities of Brazilian Amazon Caboclos, one of which engaged in NTFP trade, while the other did not. Cooperation was less frequent in the community trading NTFPs, but neither household cash income nor household participation in NTFP exploitation was associated with cooperative behavior. Decreased frequency most likely derived from indirect effects of NTFP trade, such as less time to fish or socialize, or other outcomes observable only at the community level, such as income inequality, the influx of new residents and consequent population growth. Our results indicate that conservation and development projects based on NTFP trade may negatively impact social and economic well-being of local communities.

Social and economic dimensions of the bushmeat trade in Southeast Nigeria

This presentation provides an overview of Dr. Vath's dissertation research which investigated the relationship between conservation behaviors and natural resource management. Specifically, how different stakeholders (hunters, men, women, and children) perceive natural resource conservation and how their behavior aligns with their conservation ethic.

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.

Strategies for Optimizing Value of Finished Cattle in Value-Based Marketing Grids

Performance and carcass data from 624 steers in three experiments were used to evaluate potential strategies that might be used with incoming feeders to remove animals that produce low value carcasses when cattle are sold in a valuebased grid. Removing 10% of the carcasses with the lowest net value from each group increased the overall average net value of the remaining carcasses $17.50 to $21.09. Carcass weight was found to be the most significant factor determining net value of the carcass. Gain of the steers during the first 3 to 5 weeks of the feeding period was significantly related to average final gain and carcass value, but accounted for a small portion of the overall variation in gain or carcass value. Use of initial gain was successful in identifying ten of the sixty-four carcasses with least net value in a value-based grid. Adding frame score and measurement of initial thickness of backfat along with initial gain did not significantly improve identification of the low-value carcasses. Sorting the steers as feeders based on frame score and initial thickness of backfat resulted in differences in performance and carcass measurements. The low-value carcasses tended to be concentrated in the smaller-framed steers.