The study examines multilateral negotiation in the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade and later in the World Trade Organization. It analyses the effectiveness of the decision-making process on the liberalization of trade in agricultural products in the Uruguay and Doha rounds of negotiations. Agriculture seems to be the most problematic and the most controversial issue on the agenda during the both rounds of negotiations. The aim of the study is to analyse the negotiation processes in selected cases and compare them to identify factors explaining the difference in the effectiveness of the decision-making process between Uruguay and Doha round. The study also attempts to clarify why it is so complicated to conclude the Doha round after more than fifteen years of negotiations. Therefore, six factors with presumed influence on the effectiveness of the decision-making process are defined in the theoretical part of the study: number of actors, leadership, inclusiveness of negotiation, agenda complexity, coalitions and strategies of actors. The degree of influence of these factors is then tested in the practical part of the study. The study assumes that the efficiency of the decision-making process is increased by the reduced number of active actors in the negotiation, the willingness of the actors...

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Magister Legum - LLM

Magister Legum - LLM / South Africa

The thesis explores the nature of executive leadership in international organisation. Executive leadership is often praised or blamed for outcomes in international agencies, and yet, the disciplinary literature fails to incorporate the executive head into institutional analyses of politics, power, and change over time. The thesis aims to address this lacuna and the role of executive leadership by analysing if and how it matters in international politics. The thesis draws on a composite literature from other areas of political research to establish what is known. A review of the literature and prevailing approaches to leadership studies reveals that an overwhelming majority of scholarship relies on exclusively structural or agential accounts of leadership. This somewhat determinist literature has distorted the limited knowledge on the nature of executive leadership in international organisation. Approaches that focus on agency-based explanations argue that executive heads matter greatly. Approaches that utilise structure to interpret executive leadership find that it matters little, if at all. Rejecting these narrow frameworks, the thesis uses a dialectical approach, supported by critical realism, to analyse four cases of executive leadership in the World Trade Organization to address the research questions and lacuna. The case studies draw on over 70 years of multilateral trade governance to reveal a set of core and subsidiary findings about politics, power, executive leadership, and change over time. The thesis argues that executive leadership matters, but that how it matters is contingent on the executive head and the circumstances of their term. By incorporating the executive head into the disciplinary literature, the thesis argues politics, power, and change over time can be more accurately understood.

隨著全球化趨勢以及企業間越加激烈之競爭關係，生產者為滿足消費者之即時需求，即常透過多式運送模式將商品跨國快速遞送。物流服務之涵蓋範圍因而越發廣泛並持續擴展，除了實體之商品配送服務，並完善整合不同運送模式，且將高效率之管理、關務與其他商業活動納入範疇。此種整合型物流服務之出現，除了免除生產者與貿易商物流管理之額外負擔，以利其專注本業外，高品質之物流服務尚可提昇運輸服務業之生產力，同時並增進全球經濟福利之發展。 鑑於物流服務以及供應鏈管理服務均非屬W/120中之獨立部門，WTO會員即以CPC為基礎發展出物流服務清單與相關提案，以期提昇物流服務在市場開放與國民待遇之承諾情形。 本文首先介紹物流服務之貿易實務，概述物流服務之貿易概況、產業趨勢與貿易障礙；其次探討GATS 架構下物流服務之相關規範與會員提案，並分別就相關之GATS條文與會員提案發展為剖析。此外，本文並分析WTO會員就物流服務之現行承諾狀況與新回合之開放情形。最後，本文以物流服務之分類議題、定義議題與相關服務之新回合談判進展為重點，進行深入之分析並嘗試提出可行之解決之道。 / In the wake of globalization and increasingly fierce competition, goods often need to be transported through several countries (by road, rail, air or water) as quickly as possible in order to respond "just in time" to customer demand. Logistics services comprise a wide range of services and are constantly evolving In addition to the physical transportation of goods, based on an optimized combination of available modes of transport, it involves the efficient handling of management, customs and other business matters. The existence of integrated logistics services relieve manufacturers and traders of the burden of logistics management and allow them to focus on their core competencies. High-quality logistics services could also increase the productivity of the transport sector, and improve global economic welfare at the same time. Since neither logistics nor supply chain management is identified as a distinct industry on the W/120, WTO members that rely on the CPC have advocated developing a freight logistics checklist and related proposals in the hope of improving meaningful market access and national treatment commitments for logistics services. The thesis first introduces the practices of trade in logistics services, including the profiles, trends of industrial development, and trade barriers on trade in logistics services. Then the thesis discusses the related regulations and proposals of logistics services under the GATS framework, explaining the related GATS articles for logistics servies and clarifying their influence as well. Besides, the thesis also exam members’ existing commitments and offers on the logistics services. Finally, the thesis focuses on the classification, definition and negotiation issues on the logistics services, analyzing existing difficulties and trying to submit possible solutions.

L’adoption par l’OMC de mesures de TSD utiles pour promouvoir l’agriculture des PED par le commerce agricole a favorisé l’accès des PED au marché rémunérateur de l’UE par des schémas multiples qui ne sont pas encore répartis équitablement entre les PED. Les préférences tarifaires de l’UE accordées aux PED figurent parmi les plus importants instruments de développement commercial utilisés par les pays développés. Cependant, l’effectivité des mesures de TSD reste relative à cause des limites inhérentes à leur contenu influencé par le statut particulier de l’agriculture à l’OMC. L’UE continue de bénéficier d’arrangements spéciaux et pratique un protectionnisme agricole très complexe et très décrié sur le plan externe. Les politiques commerciales, agricoles, sociales, environnementales et sécuritaires en vigueur dans le marché agricole européen neutralisent les efforts consentis par les PED, plus particulièrement les PMA et les pays ACP, pour exploiter les préférences. L’avenir de l’accès des PED au marché agricole de l’UE est actuellement lié à l’aboutissement incertain des négociations du Cycle Doha sur le TSD et l’agriculture. Les Conférences ministérielles de Bali (décembre 2013) et de Nairobi (décembre 2015) ont permis de mettre sur pied des accords partiels et a minima qui semblent maintenir le déséquilibre subtil entre un TSD peu contraignant et un statut particulier de l’agriculture toujours résistant à l’OMC, sans apporter une solution définitive au statu quo de l’accès des PED aux marchés agricoles des pays développés. Les enjeux et les perspectives de l’accès des PED au marché agricole de l’UE dépendent de la direction que prendront les travaux en cours pour répondre aux questions de développement et de libéralisation agricole dans le cadre d’un vrai cycle de développement. / The adoption by the WTO of special and differential treatment (SDT) measures that are useful for promoting the agriculture of developing countries through agricultural trade has favored the access of developing countries to the remunerative market of the EU through multiple schemes that are not yet evenly distributed between developing countries. EU tariff preferences for developing countries (DCs) are among the most important trade development instruments used by developed countries. However, the effectiveness of SDT measures remains relative because of the limitations inherent in their content influenced by the special status of agriculture in the WTO. The EU continues to benefit from special arrangements and practices agricultural protectionism that is very complex and highly criticized externally. The commercial, agricultural, social, environmental and security policies in force in the European agricultural market neutralize the efforts made by developing countries, in particular least developed countries (LDCs) and ACP countries, to exploit preferences.The future access of developing countries to the agricultural market of the EU is currently linked to the uncertain outcome of the Doha Round negotiations on SDT and agriculture. The Ministerial Conferences in Bali (December 2013) and Nairobi (December 2015) have led to the establishment of partial and minimum agreements that seem to maintain the subtle imbalance between a non-constraining SDT and a particular status of agriculture that is still resistant to The WTO without providing a definitive solution to the status quo of DCs access to agricultural markets in developed countries. The challenges and prospects of developing countries' access to the EU agricultural market depend on the direction of work in progress to address agricultural development and liberalization issues within a real development cycle.