Communication services

This is a concise encyclopedia entry that discusses the applicable law of the World Trade Organization (WTO) with regard to telecommunications, audiovisual, postal and courier services, which are framed in terms of existing WTO classification under the common heading of 'Communication Services'. The chapter analyzes the pertinent rules of the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS), the present state of commitments, the problems faced in light of the recent technological advances that affect, albeit differently, all these sectors. It includes insights from the case-law and a brief overall appraisal of the prospects for change.

An International Regulatory Framework for National Employment Policies

Employment-related policies are sensitive by any standard, and they remain basically national despite international labour standards (ILS) being even older than the United Nations. Globalization is changing this situation where countries may have to choose between ‘more’ or ‘better’ jobs. The multilateral framework of the World Trade Organization (WTO) can only have an indirect impact. But Regional Trade Agreements (RTA) and International Investment Agreements (IIA) are emerging as a new way of gradually enhancing the impact of certain labour standards. In addition, unilateral measures both by governments and importers driven by social and environmental consumer preferences and pressure groups increasingly shape the international regulatory framework for national employment policies. Even small, locally operating enterprises risk marginalization and market exclusion by ignoring these developments. The long-term influence of this new ‘network approach’ on employment-related policies, including job location, gender issues, social coherence and migration remains to be seen. Nonetheless, the still flimsy evidence gathered here seems to indicate that this new, international framework might increase sustainable employment where and when supporting measures, including through unilateral preferences and even sanctions, form a ‘cocktail’ which export-oriented industries and their suppliers will find palatable.

Complejidad en el comercio mundial de peras

En este artículo se analizan los cambios que se están experimentando en el comercio mundial de la pera. Su objetivo es conocer si los procesos de integración entre países están repercutiendo en el comercio internacional de peras y por lo tanto afectando su competitividad. Como metodología se emplea el Índice de Competitividad del Comercio Exterior (ICCE) que analiza la competitividad en un país para un producto en particular con nomenclador arancelario, abarcando sus principales destinos en las exportaciones y observando la evolución y tendencia de la cuota de participación en los principales mercados, y de esa forma evaluar a los competidores. Como resultado se observa cómo la competitividad del comercio mundial de la pera no es global y sí regional, y los países, en general, tienen sus mercados relevantes en territorios cercanos o con acuerdos comerciales. Ante este panorama es necesario la adaptación hacia un nuevo paradigma de mercado.

¿Mercosur o Alca? : Clase dominante, gobierno e inserción regional en los inicios del Kirchnerismo

El objetivo de este trabajo es analizar la relación entre gobierno, corporaciones empresarias de la clase dominante y los proyectos MERCOSUR y ALCA en los inicios del gobierno de Kirchner. La hipótesis principal es que los cambios en la inserción regional de Argentina desde 2003 (reconstrucción del MERCOSUR y rechazo al ALCA), tuvieron entre una de sus causas a las acciones de corporaciones como la Unión Industrial Argentina (UIA) y la Sociedad Rural Argentina (SRA). Como afirma Katz (2006) aquella reconfiguración regional, además de estar influenciada por las protestas sociales antineoliberales, también respondió a la demanda de una diferente inserción regional por parte de las clases dominantes locales. Mediante el análisis de la prensa escrita y de documentación de las corporaciones, observaremos los posicionamientos sobre el ALCA y el MERCOUSR, el tipo de intervención del gobierno que reclaman y por qué apoyan o rechazan las negociaciones entre 2003 y 2004, en la reunión de la Ronda Doha de Cancún de la Organización mundial de Comercio (OMC) y en las Minicumbres del ALCA de Miami y Puebla, donde quedaron trabadas las negociaciones del ALCA y se produjo la reorientación del MERCOSUR

¿Mercosur o Alca? : Clase dominante, gobierno e inserción regional en los inicios del Kirchnerismo

El objetivo de este trabajo es analizar la relación entre gobierno, corporaciones empresarias de la clase dominante y los proyectos MERCOSUR y ALCA en los inicios del gobierno de Kirchner. La hipótesis principal es que los cambios en la inserción regional de Argentina desde 2003 (reconstrucción del MERCOSUR y rechazo al ALCA), tuvieron entre una de sus causas a las acciones de corporaciones como la Unión Industrial Argentina (UIA) y la Sociedad Rural Argentina (SRA). Como afirma Katz (2006) aquella reconfiguración regional, además de estar influenciada por las protestas sociales antineoliberales, también respondió a la demanda de una diferente inserción regional por parte de las clases dominantes locales. Mediante el análisis de la prensa escrita y de documentación de las corporaciones, observaremos los posicionamientos sobre el ALCA y el MERCOUSR, el tipo de intervención del gobierno que reclaman y por qué apoyan o rechazan las negociaciones entre 2003 y 2004, en la reunión de la Ronda Doha de Cancún de la Organización mundial de Comercio (OMC) y en las Minicumbres del ALCA de Miami y Puebla, donde quedaron trabadas las negociaciones del ALCA y se produjo la reorientación del MERCOSUR

¿Mercosur o Alca? : Clase dominante, gobierno e inserción regional en los inicios del Kirchnerismo

El objetivo de este trabajo es analizar la relación entre gobierno, corporaciones empresarias de la clase dominante y los proyectos MERCOSUR y ALCA en los inicios del gobierno de Kirchner. La hipótesis principal es que los cambios en la inserción regional de Argentina desde 2003 (reconstrucción del MERCOSUR y rechazo al ALCA), tuvieron entre una de sus causas a las acciones de corporaciones como la Unión Industrial Argentina (UIA) y la Sociedad Rural Argentina (SRA). Como afirma Katz (2006) aquella reconfiguración regional, además de estar influenciada por las protestas sociales antineoliberales, también respondió a la demanda de una diferente inserción regional por parte de las clases dominantes locales. Mediante el análisis de la prensa escrita y de documentación de las corporaciones, observaremos los posicionamientos sobre el ALCA y el MERCOUSR, el tipo de intervención del gobierno que reclaman y por qué apoyan o rechazan las negociaciones entre 2003 y 2004, en la reunión de la Ronda Doha de Cancún de la Organización mundial de Comercio (OMC) y en las Minicumbres del ALCA de Miami y Puebla, donde quedaron trabadas las negociaciones del ALCA y se produjo la reorientación del MERCOSUR

Domestic and international border effects

Previous studies in the border-effect literature surprisingly found that domestic border effects are larger than international border effects (e.g., in the United States or Brazil). One interpretation of this result is that these estimates include the effects of producer agglomeration. Therefore, in this study, we estimate those border effects exclusively for transactions for final consumption, in which such agglomeration forces will be weak, in China and Japan. As a result, we found larger international border effects and could not find a significant role for producer agglomeration in the estimates of border effects. We also found that China's accession to the World Trade Organization reduces border effects in trading between China and Japan but does not decrease domestic border effects.

Auto component supply chain: a path to global India

Supply chain management works to bring the supplier, the distributor, and the customer into one cohesive process. The Supply Chain Council defined supply chain as ‘Supply Chain: The flow and transformation of raw materials into products from suppliers through production and distribution facilities to the ultimate consumer., and then Sunil Chopra and Meindl, (2001) have define Supply chain management as ‘Supply Chain Management involves the flows between and among stages in a supply chain to maximize total profitability.’ After 1950, supply chain management got a boost with the production and manufacturing sector getting highest attention. The inventory became the responsibility of the marketing, accounting and production areas. Order processing was part of accounting and sales. Supply chain management became one of the most powerful engines of business transformation. It is the one area where operational efficiency can be gained. It reduces organizations costs and enhances customer service. With the liberalization of world trade, globalization, and emergence of the new markets, many organizations have customers and competitions throughout the world, either directly or indirectly. Business communities are aware that global competitiveness is the key to the success of a business. Competitiveness is ability to produce, distribute and provide products and services for the open market in competition with others. The supply chain, a critical link between supplier, producer and customer is emerged now as an essential business process and a strategic lever, potential value contributor a differentiator for the success of any business. Supply chain management is the management of all internal and external processes or functions to satisfy a customer’s order (from raw materials through conversion and manufacture through logistics delivery.). Goods-either in raw form or processed, whole sale or retailed distribution, business or technology services, in everyday life- in the business or household- directly or indirectly supply chain is ubiquitously associated in expanding socio-economic development. Supply chain growth competitive performance and supporting strong growth impulse at micro as well as micro economic levels. Keeping the India vision at the core of the objective, the role of supply chain is to take up social economic challenges, improve competitive advantages, develop strategies, built capabilities, enhance value propositions, adapt right technology, collaborate with stakeholders and deliver environmentally sustainable outcomes with minimum resources.

Spatial network surrogates for disentangling complex system structure from spatial embedding of nodes

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS MW and RVD have been supported by the German Federal Ministry for Education and Research (BMBF) via the Young Investigators Group CoSy-CC2 (grant no. 01LN1306A). JFD thanks the Stordalen Foundation and BMBF (project GLUES) for financial support. JK acknowledges the IRTG 1740 funded by DFG and FAPESP. MT Gastner is acknowledged for providing his data on the airline, interstate, and Internet network. P Menck thankfully provided his data on the Scandinavian power grid. We thank S Willner on behalf of the entire zeean team for providing the data on the world trade network. All computations have been performed using the Python package pyunicorn [41] that is available at https://github.com/pik-copan/pyunicorn.

O uso de medidas antidumping como mecanismo de barreira à entrada no mercado brasileiro

As medidas antidumping são uma exceção ao livre comércio e como tal deveriam ser usadas com restrição. No entanto, desde o GATT 1947 há preocupação com o uso abusivo de tais medidas, podendo ser o mecanismo utilizado não apenas para possibilitar a recuperação da indústria doméstica prejudicada pelas importações objeto de dumping, objetivo do Acordo Antidumping (AAD), mas com o fim de proteger a indústria nacional da concorrência estrangeira. Desta forma, o objetivo do presente trabalho é apresentar as principais características do AAD firmado ao final da Rodada Uruguai que culminou na constituição da Organização Mundial do Comércio (OMC), incluindo seus antecedentes históricos e a possibilidade de aplicação discricionária, demonstrando como uma norma surgida no plano internacional em decorrência de um acordo multilateral vem sendo utilizada pelo Brasil, com a finalidade de se demonstrar a possibilidade de uso das medidas antidumping como barreira à entrada no mercado brasileiro. Confirmada a possibilidade de uso abusivo desse instrumento de defesa comercial, ainda que no plano teórico, uma vez que não é possível analisar os efeitos reais das medidas aplicadas, serão apresentadas as formas de contrabalanço ao protecionismo atualmente existentes no próprio AAD e sua incorporação e utilização pelo Brasil bem como a possibilidade de questionamento de tais medidas como práticas anticompetitivas com fundamento na legislação antitruste perante as autoridades de defesa da concorrência. Serão ainda analisadas outras possibilidades de contrabalanço ao uso exacerbado das medidas antidumping em debate e viabilidade das mesmas no cenário atual em que se verifica, de um lado, o aumento de uso de tais medidas pelos países Membros da OMC, destacando-se o Brasil e, de outro lado, impasse nas negociações multilaterais, cabendo aos Membros tomarem decisões unilaterais sobre a aplicação de tais medidas, seu grau de intensidade e forma de aplicação a depender da proteção que se pretende garantir à indústria nacional.

A integração da indústria de energia elétrica na América do Sul: análise dos modelos técnicos e de regulamentação.

Os recursos energéticos naturais não estão distribuídos uniformemente pelo globo terrestre, e são raros os países que os têm na quantidade e na qualidade que necessitam para atender as suas necessidades. Ante a essa realidade, o comércio de energéticos tem sido a forma principal de acesso dos países que não os dispõem em relação as suas necessidades. Esse comércio, que muitas vezes é regido por tratados ou acordos firmados entre países ou blocos econômicos regionais, diversificou-se, traspassou fronteiras e, atualmente, tornou-se um item significativo nas pautas de exportações de vários países. A evolução desse comércio tem a favor a alternativa de integração por meio de interconexões estratégicas de redes e da constituição de mercados comuns, que viabilizam a exploração do potencial de complementariedade energética de forma mais racional. Diante desse contexto, esta dissertação apresenta um estudo exploratório que avalia o estado da arte da integração energética sul-americana e faz análises dos modelos técnicos, das regulamentações, das regulações regionais e multilaterais estabelecidas pelos blocos econômicos sul-americanos e pela Organização Mundial do Comércio. De forma complementar, o estudo verifica e apresenta os fatores que podem comprometer o avanço e a instituição de um futuro mercado comum de energia no continente, conclui pela viabilidade do prosseguimento de ações em prol da ampliação da integração da indústria de energia elétrica na América do Sul e tece recomendações. Os resultados e as recomendações deste trabalho oferecem um embasamento procedimental para a gestão e a atuação institucional dos envolvidos no processo de integração energética da indústria de energia elétrica da região sul americana.

Transaction Banking: Respecting its role in the real economy. ECRI Policy Brief No. 6, 6 December 2013

This paper sketches the main features and issues related to recent market developments in global transaction banking (GTB), particularly in trade finance, cash management and correspondent banking. It describes the basic functioning of the GTB, its interaction with global financial markets and related implications of global regulatory developments such as Basel III. The interest in GTB has recently increased, since its low-risk profile, tendency to follow growth rates worldwide and relative independence from other financial instruments became an interesting diversification opportunity both for banks’ business models and for investors. Transaction banking has been a resilient business during the crisis, despite the reduction in world trade figures. In the post crisis period, GTB must cope with new challenges related to increased local and global regulation and the risk of inconsistency in regulatory approaches, which could negatively impact the global network and increased competition by new market entrants. Increased sophistication of corporate clients, as well as the pressure to develop and adopt technological innovations more quickly than other areas of banking continues to impact the business. The future of the industry closely depends on its ability to adjust to complex regulatory developments while at the same time being able to operate a global and efficient network.

The TTIP negotiations: a Pirandello play

Notre Europe – Jacques Delors Institute and the European Policy Centre during which experts, including Pascal Lamy, honorary president of Notre Europe – Jacques Delors Institute and former Director of the WTO explored the key issues of the current Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) negotiations. What are the geoeconomic and geostrategic goals of the negotiations? What are the rules of the negotiations? Who are the main players? What impact might TTIP have on world trade?

THE KYOTO PROTOCOL AND THE WTO: INSTITUTIONAL EVOLUTION AND ADAPTATION. CEPS Policy Brief No. 28/December

Overview. Questions about the interface between the multilateral climate regime embodied in the Kyoto Protocol and the multilateral trade regime embodied in the World Trade Organisation (WTO) have become especially timely since the fall of 2001. At that time, ministerial-level meetings in Marrakech and Doha agreed to advance the agendas, respectively, for the implementation of the Kyoto Protocol and for negotiations on further agreements at the WTO. There have been concerns that each of these multilateral arrangements could constrain the effectiveness of the other, and these concerns will become more salient with the entry into force of the Kyoto Protocol. There are questions about whether and how the rights and obligations of the members of the WTO and the parties to the Protocol may conflict. Of particular concern is whether provisions in the Protocol, as well as government policies and business activities undertaken in keeping with those provisions, may conflict with the WTO non-discrimination principles of national treatment and most-favoured nation treatment. The WTO agreements that are potentially relevant to climate change issues include many of the individual Uruguay Round agreements and subsequent agreements as well. The principal elements of the Kyoto Protocol that are particularly relevant are its provisions concerning emissions trading, the Clean Development Mechanism, Joint Implementation, enforcement, and parties’ policies and measures. In combination, therefore, there are numerous potential points of intersection between the elements of the Kyoto Protocol and the WTO agreements. Previous studies have clarified many issues, as they have focused on particular aspects of the regimes’ relationships. Yet, some analyses suggest that the two regimes are largely compatible and even mutually reinforcing, while others suggest that there are significant conflicts between them. Those and other studies are referenced in the ‘suggestions for further reading’ section at the end of the paper.1 The present paper seeks to expand on those studies by providing additional breadth and depth to understanding of the issues. The analysis gives special attention to key issues on the agenda – i.e. issues that are particularly problematic because of the likelihood of occurrence of specific conflicts and the significance of their economic and/or political consequences. The paper adopts a modified ‘triage’ approach, which classifies points of intersection as (a) highly problematic and clearly in need of further attention, (b) perhaps problematic but less urgent, and (c) apparently not problematic, at least at this point in time. The principal conclusions are that: · The missions and objectives of the two regimes are largely compatible, and their operations are potentially mutually reinforcing in several respects. · Some provisions of the multilateral agreements that may superficially seem at odds are not likely to become particularly problematic in practice. · ‘Domestic policies and measures’ that governments may undertake in the context of the Protocol could pose difficult issues in the context of WTO dispute cases. · Recent WTO agreements and dispute cases acknowledge the legitimacy of the ‘precautionary principle’ and are thus consistent with the environmental protection objectives of the Protocol. · The relative newness of the climate regime creates opportunities for institutional adaptation, as compared with the constraints of tradition in the trade-investment regime. · The prospect of largely independent evolutionary paths for the two regimes poses a series of issues about future international regime design and management, which may require new institutional arrangements. In sum, the present paper thus finds that although there are some areas of interaction that are problematic, the two regimes may nevertheless co-exist in relative harmony in other respects –more like ‘neighbours’ than either ‘friends’ or ‘foes’, as Krist (2001) has suggested.

Coalitions, Power and Institutional Change in Global Patent Politics. IES WORKING PAPER 2/2013

With the 1995 Agreement on Trade - related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS), a centralised rule - system for the international governance of patents was put in place under the general framework of the World Trade Organisation (WTO). Since then, the number of patent – related institutions has increased monotonically on the multilateral, plurilateral and bilateral levels. I will explain this case of institutional change by focusing on the norm – setting activities of both industrialised and developing countries, arguing that both groups constitute internally highly cohesive coalitions in global patent politics, while institutional change occurs when both coalitions engage in those negotiating settings in which they enjoy a comparative advantage over the other coalition. Specifically, I make the point that industrialised countries’ norm – setting activities take place on the plurilateral and bilateral level, where economic factors can be effectively translated into political outcomes while simultaneously avoiding unacceptably high legitimacy costs; whereas developing countries, on the other hand, use various multilateral United Nations (UN) forums where their claims possess a high degree of legitimacy, but cannot translate into effective political outcomes. The paper concludes with some remarks on how this case yields new insights into ongoing debates in institutionalist International Relations (IR), as pertaining to present discussions on “regime complexity”.