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TRADE policy does not mark time. It is either
moving forwards or it is moving backwards. Rather than let the agenda
be set by those fearful of change, the Institute intends to be pro-active
in promoting ideas, proposals and initiatives for:
- advancing the liberalization
of trade in services, manufactures and agricultural products;
- extending the WTO system
to investment regulations and competition laws;
- achieving consistency
among WTO rules on regulatory trade laws, most notably emergency-protection,
anti-dumping and subsidy-countervailing measures;
- enhancing the rule of
law to uphold private property rights and laws of contract, critical
to the functioning of market economies;
- improving the WTO agreement
on trade-related aspects of intellectual property rights;
- addressing impediments
to technological advances that can contribute to economic growth and
development;
- introducing a multilateral
framework of rules on electronic commerce;
- broadening the notion
of "transparency" beyond the visibility of trade measures to
the visibility of their effects;
- promoting transparency,
openness and disclosure in public administration, corporate governance
and financial institutions; and
- strengthening the links
between the WTO, the World Bank and the IMF to improve "global coherence"
among trade, financial (debt) and monetary policies.
That is a full agenda. Ignoring such issues does not
make them go away. For decades political thought, leadership and institutions
have not kept pace with the rapid integration of the world economy.
One lesson has been that economic integration does not
wait for publics — for politicians, commentators and demonstrators
— to grasp the issues involved. So it is becoming more and more critical
that public discourse be attuned to changing demands so that decisions
are motivated not by fear but by an appreciation of the potential scope
for improving standards of living around the world.
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"Obscene" Farm Bill
"The Farm Bill that Democratic leaders … are trying to push
through the Senate before Congress adjourns for the holidays is obscene.
It would institutionalize the insupportable excesses of the past few
years in which billions of dollars in supposedly emergency payments
have been regularly made to the nation's largest and least-needy producers.
In the House, the Republican leadership won approval of a similar bill,
over mild administration objections, in October"
—Editorial, "A Piggy
Farm Bill",
The Washington Post,
14 December 2001
Most Damaging Program
"One should note the irony of the European
Union's position as a user of anti-dumping measures, in view of its
export subsidies on farm surpluses, the most damaging dumping programme
in the world…"
—MARTIN
WOLF in the
Financial Times, London and New York, 21 November 2001
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