World Trade Law

Il processo di trasformazione della Comunità Internazionale, avviatosi nella seconda metà del secolo scorso, si caratterizza per l’affermarsi del principio della cooperazione tra soggetti internazionali, in luogo del tradizionale principio dell’equilibrio di potenza. Ciò ha portato allo sviluppo di organizzazioni volte ad implementare tale cooperazione. A sua volta il ruolo assunto dalle organizzazioni internazionali ha favorito l’emergere di interessi riconducibili alla Comunità Internazionale in quanto tale, la cui cura è stata ricondotta all'interno degli ordinamenti giuridici delle diverse organizzazioni. Il parallelo sviluppo dei sistemi giurisdizionali ha favorito la ricognizione di principi giuridici volti ad individuare dei limiti all'azione statale di tutela dei propri interessi ove questa, pur legittimamente esercitata, si ponga in contrasto con interessi riconosciuti a livello internazionale e tutelati attraverso l’azione delle organizzazioni internazionali. Il si...

This entry in the Max Planck Encyclopedia of International Procedural Law, titled Panel: Dispute Settlement System of the World Trade Organization (WTO), comprehensively covers all aspects of dispute settlement before WTO panels, as well as panel proceedings within the overall WTO dispute settlement system. This includes informal and formal consultations; the establishment and composition of panels; the sequence of proceedings; access for non-disputing parties; and the role of of the WTO Secretariat. The article also covers various elements of the panel process, including terms of reference, the standard of review, the applicable rules of interpretation, questions of evidence, the use of experts, the confidentiality of panel proceedings, panel expenses, and impartiality. It finally touches on how developing countries participate in the panel process and what the consequences are of the WTO's Appellate Body suspension.

South Africa, the power house of the African continent, as well as Germany, Europe's largest economic power, are faced with an intricate maze of international obligations, whether related to the United Nations, the World Trade Organization, the African Union or the European Union, international human rights law, international humanitarian law, or any other sub-regime of international law. The two countries are in a different position when facing the implementation of this maze of obligations. As a result, an exchange of ideas and experiences pertaining to the implementation of international obligations can prove fruitful for both countries. Moreover, such an exchange could also serve as a useful point of departure for other countries in Southern Africa that face similar challenges in relation to implementation.

"The Report presents insights which illuminates the intertwinements of European regulatory policies and global governance arrangements. By pinning down the exact nature of the interaction between these two levels, the EU’s dilemma becomes obvious: On the one hand, stronger global governance can be a chance, through which the EU can clarify its own raison d’être of increased integration to the wider world. On the other hand, the design of the European project is being challenged by more assertive global structures. This is especially the case in relation to the WTO regime, which is constraining the decisional autonomy of the EU, regarding the appropriateness of its content and its external effects. Thus, the regulation of services in the EU and the WTO are discussed in the first section of this report. Section two focuses on labour standards, which are analysed from different angles in order to clarify the functions of the WTO and the ILO, multinational companies as well as other private actors within this specific field. The final section deals with the legitimacy problematic of transnational governance.

Table of contents:

Introduction
Christian Joerges and Poul F. Kjaer

Section One: Freedom of Services

Chapter 1
The Multiple Understandings of Conflict between Trade in
Services and Labour Protection
Alexia Herwig
Chapter 2
Competing in Markets, not Rules:
The Conflict over the Single Services Market
Susanne K. Schmidt
Chapter 3
Competitiveness and Labour Protection: A Comment
Markus Krajewski
Section Two: Labour Standards
Chapter 4
WTO and ILO: Can Social Responsibility be maintained
in International Trade?
Josef Falke
Chapter 5
Reframing RECON: Perspectives on Transnationalisation and
Post-national Democracy from Labour Law
Claire Methven O’Brien
Chapter 6
Transnational Governance and Human Rights: The Obligations of
Private Actors in the Global Context
Regina Kreide
Section Three: The Legitimacy of Transnational Governance
Chapter 7
Legitimacy through Precaution in European Regulation of GMOs?
From the Standpoint of Governance as Analytical Perspective
Maria Weimer
Chapter 8
The Justice Deficit of the EU and other International Organisations
Jürgen Neyer
Chapter 9
Towards Normative Legitimacy of the World Trade Order
Alexia Herwig and Thorsten Hüller
Chapter 10
From Utopia to Apology – The Return to Inter-state Justice
in Normative IR Scholarship: Comments on Neyer and
Herwig & Hüller
Jens Steffek"

While the trade and environment debate has long focused on the adverse impact of environmental measures on free trade and vice versa and on securing policy space to regulate in the environmental interest, the focus has only recently started to shift to the potentially reinforcing relationship between trade and sustainable development. The present contribution explores this notion by discussing the liberalization of trade in low-carbon goods as a contribution to the fight against climate change. It provides an overview over the existing trade barriers and the efforts to eliminate these barriers for renewable energy goods and energy efficient technologies. The contribution furthermore identifies the liberalization potentials and main challenges in the multilateral, plurilateral and regional contexts. Perhaps surprisingly, mega-regional trade agreements are identified as the most promising venue to pursue ambitious liberalization efforts for low-carbon goods, if trade negotiators were willing to make this a central part of the agreements.

Recent estimates suggest that the potential economic growth to be realized from liberalizing barriers to Internet access and digital trade across the G20 could be as much as US$4.2 trillion, and this potential is even greater for the developing world, where a combination of growing youth-aged populations, rising incomes, and urbanization will reduce the marginal cost of extending access to a wider population in the period immediately ahead. However, realizing this opportunity will depend heavily on removing constraints that inhibit universal Internet access and preventing the emergence of new barriers to digital trade.

This paper presents a survey of the mosaic of trade barriers that currently affect the Internet economy. It looks at how traditional trade issues need to be rethought in light of the Internet, suggests two new areas of trade policy that could further liberalise digital trade, and proposes a methodology for further progress in this area.

The European Union (EU) includes clauses on labor rights in free trade agreements with partner countries. One of these clauses was added to the Free Trade Agreement between the EU and South Korea. This article looks at the clause as an attempt of the EU to include labor rights in international trade law. The argument of the article is that the labor clause does include several innovative features which entrench the presence of labor law in international trade agreements. However, the clause remains mainly about political cooperation and struggles to define enforceable legal obligations on states. This is so because of the exceptions in the first part of the clause, the vagueness of the labor rights obligations and the lack of an enforcement mechanism. Keywords labor rights – free trade agreements – WTO – ILO – sustainable development

The idea of China’s co-operation with the Central and Eastern European countries in the sixteen-plus-one format (16+1 Group) rather than bilaterally (including Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Czechia, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Macedonia, Montenegro, Poland, Romania, Serbia, Slovakia and Slovenia) first came forth in December 2011 when China and Poland signed a declaration on strategic-partnership relations.  This idea was formalised in April 2012 by China’s unilateral declaration on Twelve Measures for Promoting Friendly Cooperation with Central and Eastern European Countries.  Despite a few summits hold and a few plurilateral declarations within the framework of the 16+1 Group signed, the project did not materialise until 2016 when China first entered into strategic partnership (along with a set of concrete agreements) with Czechia in March, and in June entered into comprehensive strategic partnership with Poland as the largest country of the 16+1 Group.
One should not be mistaken to think, however, that Poland and China move into unknown territory by signing a few agreements potentially opening doors to intensified economic, infrastructural, and transportation-related co-operation (which will be essential for the One Belt One Road Initiative).  In retrospect of the last one hundred fifty years, just the opposite is true.  Only last thirty years saw some retardation of Sino-Polish relations after Poland had found itself in the Western sphere of influence.  Since 1880s, Poles played a key role in the then Russian Empire’s endeavour to bring about the Russian vision of the New Silk from about century ago, resulting in that a large Polish community lived in Harbin between the 1900s and the 1940s.  In the interbellum period, independent Poland concluded trade treaty with the Beiyang government in 1928, replaced by the trade treaty with Kuomintang’s government concluded in 1929, and since 1930s Poland also had to deal with Manchukuo’s government because of Polish community still living in Harbin.
After WW2, within the block of communist countries, Sino-Polish relations were very intense.  Between 1940s and the 1970s Poland’s and China’s economies were complementary and the volume of trade between two countries grew multi-fold in the 1950s.  In 1951 two countries established still-existing Shipping Joint Stock Company which was the first joint-venture in the history of post-war China.  In 1956, thanks to Chinese leaders’ veto, Soviet Union’s leaders did not dare to military intervene in Poland which, as a result, regained full sovereignty as to its internal socio-economic policies.  During the hardship of the 1980s, Chinese government lend Poles harassed by Reagan administration’s economic sanctions a hand by extending a trade credit to Polish government and by supplying food.  Finally the backbone of Sino-Polish economic relations was set up yet in late 1980s when two countries concluded agreements on (i) civil aviation, (ii) avoidance of double taxation and the prevention of fiscal evasion, and (iii) protection of foreign investment.
Now, thanks to its geographical situation, Poland is a key to the realisations of Halford Mackinder’s 1904’s vision of the creation of Eurasia (heartland) which would reverse the results of (i) the Age of Discovery in the global scale, likely leading to the economic marginalisation of North America, and (ii) economic dualism in Europe split by the river of Elbe, likely leading to income-equalisation between Western Europe and  Eastern Europe which has not been the case since the 16th century.  Poland is predestined to be the new Silk Road’s hub bridging railway routes coming to Europe from the East (via China, Kazakhstan, Russia, Belarus) and from the South (via Balkans, Hungary, Slovakia).
However, current Poland’s government’s stance on the new Silk Road  project is rather disappointing.  Poland’s membership in the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) as the only country’s from the Central and Eastern Europe region was inherited from the previous cabinet and, apart from that, efforts to facilitate the development of the new Silk Road on the Polish territory have so far been very mediocre.  The conclusion of a rather symbolic comprehensive strategic partnership was accompanied with three agreements resolving only minor issues, including (i) mutual recognition of academic degrees and diplomas in higher education, yet the signed agreement was very general and neither set up any mechanism of automatic recognition nor covered professional qualifications, (ii) plans of cultural co-operation until 2019, and (iii) the exemption of international air transportation services from value added tax.  Altogether, for the time being, the prospects for the development of the new Silk Road’s hub in Poland look rather dim.  Poland’s current government’s allegiance to the idea of Trans-Pacific alliance remains strong, and  policy-makers remain to look Westwards only.  They seem to be incapable of scenario-thinking and, at least at present, seem to reject the hand reached out by China.

Fossil fuel subsidies harm the environment, add to health hazards caused by air pollution, and delay the energy transition. Scholars and practitioners have therefore been exploring ways to reform and eliminate them. This paper discusses the practice of energy dual pricing in the broader context of fossil fuel subsidy reform. The contribution explores avenues for constraining dual pricing, which is approached as a fossil fuel subsidy, within the framework of the WTO. It does so by proposing options under existing rules, as well as suggesting changes to the system beyond current rules.

2015 is an important year for both climate and trade policy. While in the climate community eyes are set on the COP21 in Paris for a new climate policy framework which would succeed Kyoto, trade negotiators are preparing for the final phases of negotiations on so-called “mega-regional” trade agreements like the TPP, TTIP, and CETA. This paper argues that the current momentum should be harnessed to make trade policy part of the “enabling environment” for emission reductions. This would reflect worldwide economic trends with respect to growing markets for low-carbon technologies like renewable energy and energy-efficiency. However, it would also mean a new approach in the relationship between trade and the environment, and a shift of focus from regulatory space to common regulation and targeted trade-liberalization of climate-friendly goods and services. This contribution explores ways in which trade liberalization and climate policy can be effectively linked in EU trade agreements under negotiation, focusing on, i.a., the liberalization of trade in low-carbon goods and services and a regulatory alignment of emissions standards.

As with many other aspects of the GATT regime, the process by which disputes among the Contracting Parties to the GATT are resolved has changed markedly as the demands on the GATT have grown. Early procedures relied heavily on negotiation among states. Over time, those parties seeking legalistic mechanisms as a means of enhancing effectiveness have challenged the diplomatic approach. To a great extent, the implementation of legalist principles has had a salutary effect on the regime. Dispute resolution procedures have become more formal, independent and benefit from increased legitimacy. Even so, the ever-increasing demands of international trade on the system have made dispute resolution a continuing challenge for the international community. The process remains bedeviled by delays, problematic enforcement of decisions, and unbalanced access to the process that undermines legitimacy and inadequate promotion of GATT policy objectives.

This article will examine the problems that currently hinder adjudication procedures and the prospect for improving the dispute resolution process through a number of structural changes including further emphasis on formal procedures and stringent enforcement mechanisms that establish incentives designed to conform national interests more closely with the needs of the international community as a whole.

This article discusses the place of both the World Trade Organization (WTO) and the Energy Charter Treaty (ECT) and their role in global energy governance in the light of the fragmentation debate roughly twenty years after their establishment. The Energy Charter Secretariat (ECS), the administrative body overseeing the ECT, has taken tension and overlap between the WTO and the ECT into account by providing extensive guidelines on incorporation of WTO rules into the Treaty. This so-called ‘coordination ex ante’ was aimed at functioning as a conflict prevention tool. However, gaps, conflicts and uncertainties remain. Moreover, developments in the past two decades, such as changes in membership to both the ECT and WTO, combined with an attention shift in a rapidly changing trading landscape, invite a re-evaluation of both treaties in view of fragmentation.

Pour un Etat, établir ou reconnaître la compétence d'une juridiction internationale n'est pas secondaire : une telle décision constitue un choix quant à la manière dont cet Etat décidera à l'avenir de ses relations extérieures ou même intérieures, donc quant à sa forme et ses limites en tant qu'Etat souverain. Comme dans un miroir, la politique menée par une juridiction vis-à-vis d'un Etat qui reconnaît sa compétence (ou même, parfois, d'un Etat tiers) la définit largement comme juridiction : cette politique contribue à définir son rôle et affecte la manière dont elle sera perçue, admise ou rejetée par les Etats. De là une ambivalence fondamentale des politiques croisées des Etats et des juridictions internationales : d'un côté, les juridictions tirent formellement leur autorité des Etats, qui sont aussi ceux qui déterminent leur composition, leurs bases de compétence, la procédure qu'elles doivent suivre, ou encore, en principe, si telle ou telle personne physique ou juridique (y compris l'Etat lui-même) sera soumise à sa compétence ; d'un autre côté, les juridictions internationales énoncent quels sont les devoirs juridiques de ces Etats, et il n'est pas rare qu'elles interprètent leur statut ou le Droit applicable aux Etats de manière « extensive », c'est-à-dire, au fond, d'une manière relativement indépendante de ce que souhaitent ou souhaitaient les Etats ou certains Etats.

Il processo di trasformazione della Comunità Internazionale, avviatosi nella seconda metà del secolo scorso, si caratterizza per l’affermarsi del principio della cooperazione tra soggetti internazionali, in luogo del tradizionale principio dell’equilibrio di potenza. Ciò ha portato allo sviluppo di organizzazioni volte ad implementare tale cooperazione. A sua volta il ruolo assunto dalle organizzazioni internazionali ha favorito l’emergere di interessi riconducibili alla Comunità Internazionale in quanto tale, la cui cura è stata ricondotta all’interno degli ordinamenti giuridici delle diverse organizzazioni. Il parallelo sviluppo dei sistemi giurisdizionali ha favorito la ricognizione di principi giuridici volti ad individuare dei limiti all’azione statale di tutela dei propri interessi ove questa, pur legittimamente esercitata, si ponga in contrasto con interessi riconosciuti a livello internazionale e tutelati attraverso l’azione delle organizzazioni internazionali. Il sistema di risoluzione delle controversie dell’OMC permette di osservare come al fine di rispondere a tali esigenze si faccia ricorso a principi elaborati dal diritto amministrativo statale. Principi che pongono limiti all’azione statale disciplinandone le modalità e le forme di esercizio al fine di rendere tale azione atta al perseguimento dei fini individuati non più a livello statale bensì sovranazionale.

The WWTG is a group of industry representatives from wine producing countries of the ‘new world’. Founded in 1998 and originally known as the New World Wine Producers’ Forum, the group aims to share information, collaborate on international issues & endeavors to create an environment for the free trade in wine – based on WTO consistent rules & regulations. The group came together in Zurich, Switzerland to discuss the future development of the int’l wine business in a trading world dominated by the World Trade Organization ((WTO) - 151  members on 27 July, 2007) to ensure the development of more open & competitive wine markets to the benefit of consumers, producers, exporters, and importers.

L’interesse nazionale è un concetto i cui contorni appaiono di difficile definizione: il suo esser legato alle caratteristiche di una nazione così come ai sentimenti di un popolo ne determinano il continuo mutare.
Appartiene più al piano delle scelte politiche che al dominio della scienza, da ciò derivando la sua difficile definizione.
Ciononostante  la nazione, il popolo, lo Stato, che pur vivono seguendo mutevoli visioni politiche, rinvengono il loro fondamento in alcuni elementi che appaiono come costanti nel percorso storico di crescita nel quale si è definito lo stato moderno e attraverso i quali è possibile ricostruire il concetto di interesse nazionale.
Occorre tuttavia adeguare la lettura di tali costanti al mutato quadro internazionale in cui si colloca lo Stato Italiano al fine di individuare il contenuto attuale dell’interesse nazionale.
Lo Stato nato nell’800 e definito nelle due guerre mondiali, si trova oggi inserito in un contesto internazionale che, sia dal punto di vista geopolitico, geo-economico e istituzionale,  sia con riferimento agli attori delle relazioni internazionali, appare a tal punto sviluppato da modificare la stessa funzione finora attribuita allo Stato.
Il concetto di sovranità delimitava i confini dello spazio di azione statale, del dominio riservato, entro il quale lo Stato godeva della massima libertà di scelta politica e di azione amministrativa.  Tale spazio appare oggi sempre più ristretto in ragione sia di limiti posti dal diritto internazionale, si pensi ai diritti umani, sia dell’emergere di fenomeni transnazionali e globali rispetto ai quali l’azione statale non può non svolgersi che in cooperazione, e quindi entro i limiti da questa derivanti, con altri Stati e soggetti internazionali.
Questo fenomeno di apertura degli ordinamenti nazionali all’ordinamento della Comunità Internazionale  spinge ad una riflessione circa i limiti derivanti dall’emergere di interessi ultra statali e le forme di tutela approntabili
A tal fine verranno presi in analisi gli ordinamenti giuridici della NATO e del WTO. Rispettivamente essi riguardano il piano delle relazioni politico militari e delle relazioni commerciali. l’esposizione dell’evoluzione di tali ordinamenti permetterà di evidenziare come tali enti, pur creati da Stati, abbiano nel tempo sviluppato un ruolo e una funzione che prescinde gli interessi degli Stati Membri e che sempre più indirizza la loro azione verso la tutela di interessi propri dell’organizzazione. Ciò pone il problema di come tutelare l’interesse nazionale all’interno di tali ordinamenti.
Quest’ultimo aspetto in particolare evidenzia come la tutela della sovranità, intesa come effettiva capacità di determinare scelte politiche all’interno delle istituzioni statali così come all’interno delle istituzioni internazionali, rappresenti l’interesse nazionale primario in quanto strumentale alla tutela delle diverse componenti dell’interesse nazionale.
La tutela dell’interesse nazionale non può esser più affidata al solo strumento della diplomazia stante il mutato assetto istituzionale e degli attori internazionali non più coincidente con la Comunità Internazionale delineata a Westfalia.
A tale azione sono chiamati infatti i vari organi dello Stato, le diverse amministrazioni pubbliche, i soggetti politici ed economici e quanti interagiscono sul piano internazionale in materie sensibili per la difesa degli interessi nazionali.
In un momento in cui lo Stato nazionale assume i caratteri di uno “Stato internazionale”, ovvero di uno Stato sempre più volto all’amministrazione, per quanto di sua competenza, di problematiche più ampie della nazione, appunto trans nazionali o globali, questo stesso Stato può considerarsi “nuovo”.
Lo Stato per sua natura è coinvolto in un costante processo di riforme al fine di adattare le sue strutture al mutare della società.
Tuttavia oggi il processo di riforma è dettato non più dall’esigenza di armonizzare l’azione statale rispetto “ai molti interessi assuefatti e soddisfatti negli ordinamenti antichi”  bensì dall’esigenza di armonizzare l’azione statale con interessi emergenti nel costituendo “ordinamento globale” . Questo processo di riforma non può non interrogarsi su quale sia l’interesse nazionale primariamente toccato da tali mutamenti al fine di delineare le forme e gli strumenti di tutela più adatti.

Business history can be a valuable, even critical element in teaching international management – not only at elite institutions and at postgraduate level, but at universities of applied sciences and in undergraduate education, too. It is specifically relevant for programs with a focus on Europe. Students should be given a chance to discover common and connected pasts of European enterprise. The article offers a rationale for curriculum integration and discusses case selections and teaching methods for non-historians. Five exemplary themes are presented: East India companies, financial market bubbles, telegraphy, the Suez Canal, and the emergence of airlines.
Zusammenfassung
Unternehmensgeschichte kann ein wertvoller, sogar kritischer Beitrag in der Vermittlung des internationalen Managements sein – nicht nur an elitären Einrichtungen und im Master, sondern auch an Fachhochschulen und in Bachelor-Studiengängen. Besonders relevant ist sie für Studiengänge mit Fokus Europa. Studenten sollten eine Chance erhalten, die gemeinsame und zusammenhängende Vergangenheit europäischer Unternehmenstätigkeit zu entdecken. Der Artikel begründet die Integration ins Curriculum und diskutiert Fallauswahl und Lehrmethodik für Nichthistoriker. Eine exemplarische Auswahl von fünf Themen wird gezeigt: Ostindienkompanien, Finanzmarkt-Blasen, Telegrafie, der Suezkanal und die Entstehung von Fluggesellschaften.

Abstract:
The purpose of this article is to analyse the extent of international rules that apply to multinational corporations (MNCs) regarding their environmentally degrading activities and quality control qua environmental impact. The first part of the article describes the ambiguous legal status of MNCs and examines the rules that international instruments and host state agreements impose on the activities of MNCs. The second part focuses on jurisdiction and choice of law issues of cross-border litigation and brings out its major shortcoming. Finally, the conclusion comments on the efficiency of international law in imposing environmental liability on MNCs.

By the end of 2011, China will have been a member of the World Trade Organization (the WTO) for a decade. While China has undergone dramatic changes to implement commitments contained in its Protocol of Accession, debate continues as to whether China has adequately complied with its obligations under the WTO Agreements in both letter and spirit. Some of this debate remains in the political arena, where China is censured over such issues as currency controls and or equality of access for foreign firms like Google; however, it is in the legal arena, and specifically within the WTO's Dispute Settlement Body, that some of the most controversial issues are raised, both against and by China.  This paper  analyses China's record of disputes in the WTO since its accession in 2001.

Various presidential candidates over the years have promised to reduce the U.S. trade deficit. Such arguments are based on the mistaken belief that trade deficits are bad. This paper explains why the United States is doomed to have trade deficits, and why it doesn't matter. The paper also includes a bibliography of more than 100 articles about trade, with links that will take the reader to the article.

This article reviews the World Trade Organization (WTO) compliance procedures, by invoking the interactional international law concept of a community of legal practice. One of the core objectives of the WTO is to maintain a practice of legality, including guaranteeing state and non-state actors interact based on world trade norms. In seeking to achieve this objective, the WTO aims to uphold the trade rule of law by emphasizing compliance with specified rules and procedures during the accession process, dispute settlement, and trade policy review. When examining these procedures in depth, evidence emerges of a strong link between transparency and enforcement in WTO law. This article investigates these three procedures for effecting compliance, to assess whether the WTO is sustaining a practice of legality. Second, it briefly illuminates Chad Bown's proposal to establish an Institute for Assessing WTO Commitments to improve member states' remit to detect, challenge, and deter noncompliance.

Statehood has undergone rapid expansion in both depth and scope in recent history. It has, however, always been a limited form of social ordering which has operated in conjunction with other forms of social ordering located beneath, beside and above the state. The central structural cause behind the expansion in statehood was the implosion of the eurocentric world and the subsequent decolonisation processes that unfolded in the twentieth century. Besides leading to a globalisation of statehood, this transformation also implied a transformation of transnational forms of ordering away from colonial centre/periphery differentiation and towards the kind of functionally delineated regulatory regimes that represent the dominant form of transnational ordering today. Understanding the consequences of this fundamental transformation is the central issue with which contemporary transnational legal and political theory, including the conflicts law approach, is dealing with.

This article shows how China's rise has radically altered the politics of one of the most prominent and controversial issues in the global trading system: agriculture subsidies. Agriculture subsidies depress global prices and undermine the competitiveness and livelihoods of poor farmers, and therefore have been long seen as a symbol of the injustice of the trading system. The issue has traditionally been understood in North-South terms, with developed countries seen as the perpetrators of harm and developing countries as innocent victims. In this article, however, I challenge this prevailing conception of the agricultural subsidies issue, arguing that it is now out of date and no longer corresponds with the emerging reality. A momentous but underappreciated change has taken place, largely beneath the radar of IPE scholarship: China has emerged as the world's largest subsidizer, profoundly transforming the global politics of agricultural subsidies. From a North-South battle, WTO negotiations on agricultural subsidies are now primarily centered on a conflict between the US and China. While reducing subsidies remains a pressing concern for developing countries, efforts to negotiate new and strengthened disciplines at the WTO have been thwarted by an impasse between the two dominant powers.

Foreign trade is an area about which much has been written. The majority of economists, going back to Adam Smith, have generally concluded that trade is good, and that it should be free and unhampered, at least most of the time. The reasoning behind their conclusion is almost always utilitarian-based. Free and unrestricted trade is good because the majority benefits, or because the gains from trade exceed the losses. In economic terms, one would say that trade is a positive-sum game. Economists-or more likely, politicians-who say that trade should be restricted generally try to make a special case for some special interest that has come to the legislature seeking protection. The approach in this chapter is distinctively different from what one would find in a standard economics textbook. While utilitarian approaches will be used to illustrate various points, the flaws inherent in any utilitarian approach are many. In fact, utilitarian arguments will be shown to be fatally flawed. Ethical arguments based on utilitarian approaches will be shown to be inferior to a rights approach. I will show that trade protectionism, in any form, must necessarily violate individual rights. I will also attempt to fill a gap in the trade literature which, until now, has almost always failed to view trade from the perspective of individual rights. A bibliography with links to more than 100 articles on international trade is also included.