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No description available.

An important task the WTO faces in pursuit of universality is the integration of nonmembers. Yet, becoming a member of the multilateral trade system is not easy. Accession to the WTO is a complicated and cumbersome process, which on average takes 10 years to complete. For a small state the task of joining the WTO is further protracted because its size poses certain development challenges when acquiring membership. Yet, accession for small states has not always been problematic.Accession jnder the GATT was far easier but under the WTO, accession ha come much more difficult. This thesis explores how accesion for a particular set of small states has changed through time, which it does by examining the Caribbean region. It examines how Caribbean states have joined the multilateral trade system and explores how changes in the accession process have shaped their accession experiences. The Caribbean makes an apposite case study, as not only does the region have a state, the Bahamas, currently in the queue to join the WTO, but it also has a number of states that have been members of ihe GATT/WTO for a long time, therefore permitting for research to tease out if the tuning of accession has an impact upon their accession experience. The thesis also examines whether the issue of smallness shapes accession and subsequent membership. In other words, the thesis explores whether institutional asymmetry affects the Caribbean states disproportionately because of the specificities of their political economies. It develops its argument by exploring the creation and evolution of the multilateral trade system with a key focus on aspects, which have had an impact upon accession. By utilising the conceptual framework of historical institutionalism the thesis argues Caribbean accession is shaped by the manner in which the multilateral trade system was created and evolved.

On November 9, 2000, the Sultanate of Oman (Oman) became an official member of the World Trade Organization (WTO) and on January 19, 2006 Oman signed a free trade agreement (FTA) with the United States (U.S.). Hence, Oman has pursued two different trading approaches; the WTO multilateral approach based on nondiscrimination and an FTA bilateral approach based on trading preferences with a single partner. This study evaluates the policy choices facing Oman's trade under each approach and investigates which system provides more flexible arrangements for Oman. The evaluation is based on a qualitative methodology, where three research methods are used for collecting data; official documents, semi-structured interviews, and focus groups. The content and codification analyses of the data clearly demonstrate that Oman faces better policy choices under the multilateral WTO approach than with the bilateral FTA approach and that the WTO arrangements are more flexible than those of the FTA.

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The existing WTO regime is mainly conceived through various agreements incorporating essential mandatory rules for the purposes of regulation of trade between its members. However, trade does sometimes raise issues which fall outside the WTO in the domain of other specialist regimes such as human rights and the environment, which also operate in the arena of public international law. More importantly, these instances leading to interaction of the WTO with other specialist regimes could result in conflict leading to fragmentation. It is of utmost importance, to recognise that such interaction poses challenges for the WTO in addressing such conflict through co-ordination with other regimes while upholding its unique purpose and function. Several commentators argue that the WIO's boundaries remain impermeable by disregarding other specialist regimes, such as human rights and the environment, operating in the arena of public international law. This thesis offers a different perspective by highlighting numerous instances in the form of decisions, practices and mechanisms within the WIO which bears evidence of its consideration of other specialist regimes. The thesis argues that co-ordination with other regimes in the form of waivers and subsequent interpretation reflects the process of accommodation of issues or interests advanced by other non-WTO regimes. This thesis focuses on co-ordinating initiatives both with regard to the source and manner in which they came into existence and also with regard to their effects. Furthermore, these instances of coordination also reveal how some provisions in the WTO Agreements have been used with intended and unintended consequences to address conflict, so permitting evolution of the WIO system. It is submitted here that the discussed instances of coordination indicate the possibilities which the WTO Agreements present to address and manage future conflict with other regimes. The purpose of this thesis is to inform the community of specialists and policy makers in the area of trade, human rights, health and environment about the possible ways in which adjustments can be made within WTO to address conflict.

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This thesis examines the relationship that is emerging between the World Trade Organisation (WTO) and what many international relations scholars refer to as 'global civil society'. It focuses on the interactions and dialogue that have taken place between the WTO and representatives of 'global civil society' around one particularly controversial and widely-debated set of issues: ongoing debates about the WTO's Trade Related Intellectual Property Agreement (TRIPS) and the protection of 'traditional knowledge' and 'biodiversity'. Drawing on governmentality theory and other elements of Foucauldian thought, the thesis examines the practices and processes that 'structure the possible field of action' (Foucault 1983: 221) of non-state actors who seek to feed into policy debates at the WTO, and the patterns of inclusion and exclusion that result from these. The empirical data underpinning the analysis has been generated in a number of geographical sites - Geneva, Switzerland and Lima, Cusco, Iquitos and Puno in Peru - using a 'multi-sited' ethnographic approach. The analysis developed throughout the thesis illuminates some of the processes of filtering and erasure that occur when differently situated civil society organisations attempt to contribute to the same policy debate. It also highlights the very different roles played by Northern and Southern civil society organisations in the governance of traditional knowledge and biodiversity. The thesis thereby opens up new lines of enquiry into the forms of restriction and control which operate in and through the social spaces in which civil society interacts with the WTO, and the implications of these for processes of participation and representation in global governance.