Bien que la littérature théorique et empirique étudiant les effets de l’OMC et d’une libéralisation commerciale sur les performances économiques des pays et sur le bien-être soit riche, il existe une absence de consensus quant aux liens commerce-croissance-pauvreté. Les liens ne sont ni simples, ni automatiques et requièrent d’être traités avec précaution, tout en prenant en compte les spécificités nationales et le contexte particulier de chaque pays. D’où l’attention particulière apportée à l’économie libanaise, une économie en reconstruction, caractérisée entre autres par un déficit commercial chronique et engagée depuis 1999 dans le deuxième plus long processus d’adhésion à l’OMC, qui semble loin d’être achevé. Pour examiner les impacts potentiels de l’adhésion du pays à l’OMC sur les grandeurs macroéconomiques, un modèle d’équilibre général calculable dynamique est employé, et différents scénarios sont simulés. L’analyse en équilibre général est combinée avec une analyse de micro-simulation comptable, évaluant les impacts micro-économiques sur les différentes catégories des ménages. Les résultats suggèrent que l’adhésion du pays à l’OMC entraînerait une évolution plus favorable des grandeurs macro-économiques par rapport au scénario de base (surtout lorsqu’un mécanisme d’augmentation de la productivité totale des facteurs entre en jeu). Une adhésion permettrait également une baisse de la pauvreté et des inégalités, en améliorant la situation des travailleurs non qualifiés. / Although the theoretical and empirical literature studying the effects of the WTO and trade liberalization on the economic performance of countries and the well-being is rich, it remains that there is a lack of consensus on the links trade-growth-poverty. The links are neither simple nor automatic and require to be treated with caution, and to take into account national specificities and the particular context of each country. Hence the special attention given to the Lebanese economy, characterized among others by a chronic trade deficit, and by the second longest WTO accession process, which dates from 1999 and seems far from over. To examine the impacts of Lebanon’s accession to the WTO on macroeconomic variables, a dynamic CGE model is used, and different scenarios are simulated. Using a sequential approach, the general equilibrium analysis is combined with a microsimulation analysis, evaluating the micro-economic impacts on different categories of households, poverty and inequality. The results suggest that the country's accession to the WTO leads to a more favorable economic performances compared to the baseline scenario (especially when the mechanism of the increase in total factor productivity is put into play). It also allows a reduction in poverty and inequality, by improving the situation of unskilled workers.

This thesis, entitled WTO Dispute Settlement Mechanism focuses on the issue of direct effect of WTO law with respect to the possibility of private persons to claim damages in case they are affected by the retaliatory measures adopted by the injured WTO-member in response to the violation of WTO rules perpetrated by their government. In connection with the aforesaid, the thesis compares the approach of the United States of America with the one of the European Union. Given the fact that the jurisprudence of the European Court of Justice regarding the issue of direct effect of WTO law has undergone substantial development, the thesis also analyses the jurisprudence and its outcomes. This thesis is divided into two parts. The first one introduces the dispute settlement procedure before the Dispute settlement body under the Understanding on Rules and Procedures Governing the Settlement of Disputes. The thesis focuses on particular stages of the procedure before the DSB and introduces the particular actors of the dispute settlement mechanism. The first part consists of three chapters, first of which deals with particular actors, second defining particular stages of the procedure and third focusing on the stage of implementation of DSB decisions. The second part that is also divided into three chapters...

[pt] Esta dissertação analisa a participação brasileira no G-20, uma coalizão de países em desenvolvimento (PEDs) criada pelo Brasil e a Índia durante a reunião Ministerial da Organização Mundial de Comércio (OMC), em Cancún, no México, em 2003. A coalizão tinha o objetivo de avançar a agenda de liberalização agrícola na Rodada Doha. Na época, analistas de política comercial se mostraram céticos sobre as chances de sobrevivência da coalizão, devido ao fato de que esta reunia países com interesses comerciais divergentes em agricultura. A despeito disto, o G-20 se estabeleceu como membro sine qua non das negociações e modificou o processo decisório da OMC, com a inclusão do Brasil e da Índia ao núcleo duro das negociações ao lado dos Estados Unidos e da União Européia. Porém, semelhante aumento de influência não se traduziu em uma conclusão da Rodada Doha, o que seria de sumo interesse para o Brasil. Argumento que esta dificuldade está relacionada ao fato de o G-20 ser uma coalizão com baixa coerência interna, cujas características estruturais constrangem as possíveis estratégias negociadoras ao alcance da coalizão, dificultando assim a adoção de uma estratégia distributiva que aumente as chances de que a negociação seja concluída com sucesso. O Brasil desempenhou um papel importante nessa coalizão pagando os custos da ação coletiva para garantir a coesão desta, mesmo quando isto significou abrir mão dos seus interesses comerciais. Contudo, a análise mostra que esta atitude teve limites, como ficou aparente durante a reunião da OMC realizada em Genebra em julho de 2008, quando o Brasil decidiu defender os seus próprios interesses em detrimento da cooperação com os membros do G-20. / [en] This dissertation analyzes the Brazilian participation in the G-20, a coalition of developing countries created by Brazil and India during the World Trade Organization (WTO) Ministerial Conference held in Cancún, Mexico, in 2003. The goal of the coalition was advancing an agenda of agricultural liberalization in the Doha Round. At the time, trade policy experts were skeptical as to the chances of survival of the coalition, due to the fact that it brought together countries with divergent commercial interests in agriculture. In spite of this, the G-20 established itself as a sine qua non member of the negotiations and changed the decisionmaking process of the WTO, with the inclusion of Brazil and India in the core of the negotiations together with the United States and the European Union. However, this increase in influence has not translated into a conclusion of the Doha Round, of extreme interest for Brazil. We argue that this difficulty is related to the fact that the G-20 is a coalition with low internal coherence and that its structural characteristics constrain its negotiating strategies, making it difficult for the coalition to adopt a distributive strategy that increases the probability that the negotiation is concluded successfully. Brazil played an important role paying the collective action costs in order to maintain the cohesion of the coalition, even when this meant going against its own commercial interests. However, this attitude had its limits, as was made apparent during the WTO meeting in Geneva, in July 2008, when Brazil decided to defend its own interests in detriment of cooperating with the members of the G-20.

In the last decade, World Trade Organization (WTO) Members have paid little attention to the WTO rulemaking processes and their functioning. Two high-levels commissions, as well as some scholars, have identified several areas of concerns with respect to the WTO rulemaking processes. Some of them have put forth proposals for their reform. However, the WTO has not proceeded with or even reflected upon any major reforms affecting the functioning of its rulemaking processes. The lack of attention by the Members regarding these issues motivated the focus of this thesis on the legitimacy of the WTO rulemaking processes. The principal research question of this thesis is: Are the WTO rulemaking processes legitimate? To what degree? Answering this first research question necessarily leads to a secondary one: How can the WTO rulemaking processes be assessed? This thesis recognizes that there is no uniform way for assessing legitimacy both at the national and international levels. It borrows from David Beetham's legitimacy conception and assesses the legitimacy of the WTO rulemaking processes from the standpoint of WTO Members. It builds a theoretical framework for assessing the legitimacy of the rulemaking processes on the basis of Members' conception of the WTO and the concepts of input and output legitimacy that have been frequently applied to the WTO and from which are derived four legitimacy criteria: legality, effectiveness, representativeness and openness. This thesis furthermore advances that legitimacy can only be effectively assessed as a matter of degree and, therefore, develops a multidimensional interval scale to allow a precise measurement of the four criteria of legitimacy as applied to the WTO rulemaking processes. In order to assess the rulemaking processes, it uses three cases that have led to the adoption of new rules or agreements. In fact, legitimacy matters even more for the processes that led to actual rules due to the fact that they generate binding outcomes. Such a methodology based on case studies arguably provides a more accurate representation of the WTO rulemaking processes than the general processes that have been described in the secondary literature.

Underdevelopment of developing countries is in present one of the thorniest problems of the world. Economic globalisation brings about increasingly deeper integration of world markets and increasing volumes of international trade. Multilateral trading system represented by the World Trade Organization (WTO) is one of the instruments that can, under certain circumstances, strongly contribute to economic progress of developing countries. The goal of the thesis is to reveal such circumstances and describe their coherence with the WTO and its predecessor the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade. Firstly, the thesis focuses on theoretical basis of international trade as an instrument of economic development. The thesis also describes possible imperfections of the theory specifically with regard to developing countries. Secondly, the role of the WTO in the process of liberalisation of international trade and its activities leading to reduction or elimination of the imperfections are described. The thesis shows that, on the known theoretical basis, it is possible for developing countries to gain from liberalisation of international trade on the multilateral basis. The thesis, however, also indicates that it is possible to achieve certain improvements in the existing system to the benefit of the developing countries and leading to their greater and more equitable involvement in the international division of labour.

The thesis deals with the current round of WTO negotiations. The aim of thesis is to identify the most important milestones of Doha Round development. Particular chapters are devoted to identified milestones, which are the most important ministerial conferences. The thesis describes the process and the outcomes of these conferences and the potential impact of outputs on international trade.

The World Trade Organization (WTO) dispute settlement system is facing unprecedented challenges, following the United States (US) decision to block the appointment of all Appellate Body members. The US has justified its blocking tactic, already implemented since 2017 by raising several procedural and substantive concerns with the Appellate Body's failure to follow WTO rules. On 10 December 2019, the Appellate Body was forced to suspend its activities after the second terms of two of the remaining three members expired. While the WTO dispute settlement system continues to function at the panel stage, the Appellate Body is currently unable to review appeals because it lacks the minimum number of three members required to establish a division. In addition, the collapse of the Appellate Body means that any party to a dispute can block the adoption of a panel report by filing a notice to appeal which is likely to remain in limbo for an indefinite period. Numerous studies have discussed the Appellate Body crisis and its implications for the WTO dispute settlement system. Few, however, have critically analysed the validity of the concerns that the US has raised about the Appellate Body's work over the past few years. Therefore, the purpose of this research is to discuss and critically analyse these concerns to determine whether the Appellate Body has indeed strayed from its limited mandate. In addition, the research will provide recommendations on how to save the appellate stage and ensure that appeals are resolved while WTO members attempt to find permanent solutions to this unprecedented crisis.

Why have Russia been accessing the World Trade Organization for 19 years? What were the main preconditions for hard negotiation, that took almost two full decades? The diploma thesis is written as a case study, analysing Russia's accession to the World Trade Organization from the economical point of view and political aspects of the negotiations. The data about new members after 1995 of the organization are used to verify the hypothesis. ! First part of the thesis is the analysis of the rules of the World Trade Organization for new members acceptance. The rules and processes strongly influence the final outcome of the negotiation. The economic indicators which are not set, the right of each member to veto and the operations of the working group on both bilateral and multilateral level are crucial. ! The second part is focused on the Russian accession to the organization itself. First is (being) researched the impact of applicant's economical influence based on the GDP. According to data about 30 applicants, which entered the World Trade Organization, there is no straight relation to the lenght of the process. Then the nine Schelling's categories of the negotiations were analysed. The most important is the continuos negotiation, defined as a parallel negotiation or a conflict between an applicant...

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<p>Rising levels of food insecurity is currently one of the most pressing issues in global politics. While the United Nations (UN) system has traditionally been responsible for addressing world hunger, the World Trade Organization (WTO) has emerged as a major site of global food security governance. As a result, the UN system and WTO now share authority over the global governance of food security. There are major tensions between these two regimes, with WTO trade rules making agriculture and food increasingly subject to market forces, while, in sharp contrast, the UN advances a human rights approach to food and a greater role for states and deeper constraints on the market. The WTO’s expanding authority over food security has prompted a counter-movement by the UN system, with UN institutions actively seeking to shape WTO trade rules in an attempt to limit the negative impacts of trade liberalization on world food security. This study develops a theory of international organizations as semi-autonomous actors that influence outcomes at competing institutional sites of global governance. This theoretical model, and its supporting empirical investigation, provide a novel contribution to the International Relations and International Political Economy literature on the role of state and non-state actors in contesting global governance. In particular, this study demonstrates that international organizations: act behind the scenes and in hidden ways in inter-state negotiations; perceive and adapt to new hierarchical configurations of power at the global level; and, engage in transnational political action that is motivated by moral and ethical concerns.</p> / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)