Magister Legum - LLM

Magister Philosophiae - MPhil / The problem that this Research Paper is aiming to examine is whether the Bali Agreement has successfully impacted on the consensus pitfalls and the Doha Round stalemate as shown in the background to the study. / National Bursary and Grants Agency (ANBG)

Magister Legum - LLM / The aim of the research is to establish how trade distorting agricultural subsidies have impacted South Africa’s agricultural exports. The research will explore trade distorting subsidies and how South Africa’s trade liberalisation approach relative to its trading partners have impacted South Africa’s trade output, as well as suggesting effective policy recommendations for South Africa’s agricultural trade going forward.

An agreement on the inclusion of a social clause in the World Trade Organization‟s (WTO) multilateral trade agreements largely depends on reassuring objecting member states that such inclusion will contribute to an improved recognition of core labour standards in trade, without altering the competitive advantage of one trading partner over another. Reassurance must be given to the effect that incorporating a social clause in the WTO legal framework would not be used as a trade restricting mechanism which might have direct, negative effects on the development of countries worldwide. Such an argument may not be won easily from a legal and economic perspective. There is an omnipresent conflict at the international level between the basic values underlying multilateral trade agreements and principles governing the protection of core labour standards. On the one hand, supporting the stance of free trade is the fundamental force of profit maximization while on the other hand, and in direct opposition to this market driven value system, are human rights-based calls for recognising core labour standards in employment matters related to trade. Increased international trade is a powerful tool for tackling poverty and social misery worldwide. It could thus be important to adopt a legal framework in the multilateral trade system to harness potential opportunities a trade-labour linkage could provide. In that case, the legal questions of whether or not there should be a tradeoff between the right to trade and compliance with core labour standards and whether a social clause in the WTO would achieve this purpose had to be addressed. However, without a compatible underpinning legal framework of universally accepted trade-labour standards, incorporating a social clause in the WTO would be a misplaced legal objective which is unachievable as it could lead to a conflict between the WTO and the International Labour Organisation (ILO) and at most could create a legal fiction whose results may not be positively measurable. Setting two international legal norms at conflict with each other is systematically studied as a conflict in which the values of the global market economy are in a supposed confrontation with those protecting core labour standards as human rights. Therefore, this study undertook a contemporary legal analysis of the possibilities and challenges of incorporating a social clause in the WTO for purposes of entrenching the protection of core labour standards. It put forward arguments and tentative proposals for a trade-labour linkage legal framework which could dispel calls for excluding a social clause in the WTO.

The diploma thesis is focused on the participation of developing countries in multilateral trade system. It analyzes the developing countries' view of world trade system, how this system reflected their special needs and interests and how their positions changed in multilateral trade negotiations under GATT/WTO.

Nowadays, being a member of the World Trade Organization for a country means becoming an active participant of the world trade relations. On May 16, 2008, Ukraine officially became the 152th member-country of the WTO. The thesis describes the process of Ukraine's acceptance to the WTO that lasted for more than fourteen years. Moreover, in the work it is analyzed Ukraine's gains and losses after the two-year WTO membership. The study focuses on strength and weaknesses of the WTO membership in common and for Ukraine specifically.

This thesis deals with global governance and its changing structures reflected in the challenges to the functioning of post-war intergovernmental institutions. The main aim of the thesis is to find out whether the World Trade Organization is effective enough in dealing with emerging global issues, which is tested on the case study of the adoption of the TRIPS agreement with special focus on pharmaceuticals. In the first chapter, it provides a theoretical framework of the global governance theory and the means for evaluating the effectiveness of international institutions in global governance through input and output legitimacy. The second chapter deals with the role of the World Trade organization in global governance and evaluating its performance. The third chapter evaluates the role of the World Trade Organization in protection of intellectual property rights with focus on pharmaceuticals. The methods used in the thesis include analysis, synthesis, deduction while the research is supported with quantitative data, tables and case study.

This thesis intends to provide an argument in favour of private participation in the dispute settlement system of the World Trade Organization (WTO) as an area of the world trading system most visible to but also most removed from the influence of private actors. Private participation is understood as the direct and formal involvement of non-governmental actors in dispute resolution. It will distinguish between passive and active participation, the former addressing the flow of information from the WTO to civil society (understood as the community of all Member societies affected by the world trading system), while the later is concerned with issues of access and standing. As first step, I will develop an analytical framework for international dispute settlement systems based on the three elements of actors, material scope and procedures, as well as the underlying theoretical conceptions for each element. After having given an overview of the relevant features of the world trading system and its dispute resolutions mechanisms as set forth in the Understanding on Rules and Procedures Governing the Settlement of Disputes (DSU) of the WTO, I continue by subsuming the DSU under the analytical framework. Based on the position of the DSU within the analytical framework, I will submit an argument in favour of private participation, drawing particularly from the international relations theory of liberalism. Parting from realist-institutionalist assumptions predominant in public international law, liberalism places the individual at the center of international and WTO law, opening the latter for new categories of international actors. Finally, taking into account the liberal reliance on individual rights and democratic participation, I will suggest models to implement private participation in WTO dispute settlement. My aim is to promote meaningful involvement of private actors whose interests and objectives are affected by the world trading system, with varying procedural roles reflecting their relation to the WTO's trade regime, ranging form passive participation, to party status, to amici curiae. / Law, Peter A. Allard School of / Graduate

The aim of the thesis titled Canada's trade policy is to analyze the current Canadian trade policy including its objectives, trade policy instruments that Canada uses for the implementation of its trade policy and how Canada is trying to contribute to the liberalization on the world trade. The first part of the thesis explains the concept of trade policy, introduces the current economic situation of Canada and analyzes the Canadian foreign trade. The most important chapter is devoted to the autonomous and contractual instruments of the trade policy of Canada. The aim of the last chapter is to show through two examples of Canadian trade disputes at the WTO how the decisions taken in these disputes can affect Canadian trade policy.

Magister Legum - LLM / Trade and climate change intersect in many ways. Aside from the broad debate as to whether economic growth and trade adversely affect the environment, linkages are recognized between existing rules of the World Trade Organization (WTO) and rules established in various multilateral environmental agreements (MEAs). Controlling greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions promises to be a top priority on both national and international agendas, and special attention has been given to the relationship between the WTO and the emerging international regime on climate change. The unilateral use of carbon-related import restrictions risks triggering retaliation by trading partners. It also raises questions about whether such trade measures are consistent with countries’ obligations under the WTO. The WTO status of measures imposed not on products directly but on the methods by which they were produced, which is the case in carbon-related trade restrictions, is not clear. Whether such violations can be excused by exceptions for measures taken with the purpose to protect human life or health, or the environment, is an open question. There is also the question of whether solutions to the problem of the WTO’s inconsistency with regard to trade-related measures in climate change policy can be found. This paper explores the relationship between trade and climate change regimes, the potential areas of conflict, and what can be done to promote mutual gains. Apart from exploring the key issues and examining the conceptual underpinning of the two regimes, revealing important symmetries as well as some divergence, the paper is aimed at finding a more universal and long lasting solution to the WTO’s inconsistency of carbon-related to GHG emissions, both within and outside the WTO.