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This thesis examines the impacts and implications of post-1995 linkages between the Codex Alimentarius Commission and the World Trade Organization. Chapters 1 and 2 provide data on the structures, functions, and procedures of the Codex Commission and the WTO and analyze their institutional approaches to risk, danger, risk management and the precautionary principle. Chapter 3 evaluates three impacts of post-1995 linkages between these institutions (the politicization of the Codex Commission, deadlock in the Codex standard elaboration process, and dispute in the WTO) as well as three implications of that linkage (risk v. danger assessment and management, changed interpretations of "science," and changed interpretations of "consensus"). Finally, Chapter 4 applies these impacts and implications to food safety cases. This chapter establishes a framework for understanding issues of food safety, Codex standard elaboration, and WTO dispute settlements in terms of scientific and political consensus and debate. This thesis argues, first, that the post-1995 linkage between the Codex Commission and the WTO changed Codex member state expectations and behaviors relative to standard elaboration procedures and that these changed expectations impacted both member state governments and the WTO. It further demonstrates that the extent of the Codex Commission's ability to elaborate universal standards and the WTO's responsibility for dispute settlement can be explained in terms of scientific and political dispute and consensus. Finally, it illustrates that risk and danger are different concepts, require different food safety approaches, and generate different institutional and national reactions. This analysis addresses existing critiques of the Codex Commission, the WTO, and their post-1995 linkages, examines the potential of both institutions to simultaneously pursue consumer safety and open trade objectives, and points to avenues for future research. / Master of Arts

This study examines the impact of the Association Agreement between the European Union and Ukraine on agriculture trade and agriculture businesses in the region. We argue that the Association Agreement is a Regional Trade Agreement in accordance with provisions of the GATT, and thereby apply established arguments of the positive and negative effects of the Association Agreement. To analyse the impact and establish a trend, we have utilised data from EU’s agricultural imports from Ukraine, Ukraine’s agriculture production output, and EU exports from one of Ukraine’s largest grain exporters. The agriculture commodities used to represent the agriculture data in the analysis are corn, wheat, seed oils, rapeseed, and sunflower seeds.  To support our discussion of the trends depicted in the data, we have applied the principles of the Theory of Free Trade, and its opposing theory, Protectionism. The findings suggest that the Association Agreement has facilitated a policy shift in the Ukrainian agriculture industry towards EU and away from Russia. However, we cannot limit out the possibility that this shift was inevitable with or without the Association Agreement considering Russia’s aggression towards Ukraine since 2014. Ukrainian agriculture exports to the EU have gradually increased since the implementation of the Association Agreement, and we infer that the Association Agreement plays a role in this increase. Our findings also suggest that agriculture businesses in the frontline five countries have been negatively impacted by the Autonomous Trade Measures which were introduced under the Association Agreement, but we argue that this was never the intention of the legislation. Lastly, we find that Multilateralism is achieved through a regionalist policy in this specific case, but that due to unforeseen circumstances does not reach its full potential.

京都大学 / 新制・課程博士 / 博士(経済学) / 甲第25079号 / 経博第686号 / 京都大学大学院経済学研究科経済学専攻 / (主査)教授 神事 直人, 准教授 高野 久紀, 教授 森 知也 / 学位規則第4条第1項該当 / Doctor of Economics / Kyoto University / DGAM

<p>The rapid growth in the number of regional trade agreements (RTAs) has led to concern about the weakening of the multilateral trading system. This thesis examines the spread of such agreement and the extent to which they pose a threat to the multilateral system. Regionalism and multilateralism are complimentary as shown in the case study of the East African Community. The current regional trade agreement management rules are weak and ambiguous and possible amendments for these rules are proposed</p>

<p>The rapid growth in the number of regional trade agreements (RTAs) has led to concern about the weakening of the multilateral trading system. This thesis examines the spread of such agreement and the extent to which they pose a threat to the multilateral system. Regionalism and multilateralism are complimentary as shown in the case study of the East African Community. The current regional trade agreement management rules are weak and ambiguous and possible amendments for these rules are proposed</p>

Magister Legum - LLM / The rapid growth in the number of regional trade agreements (RTAs) has led to concern about the weakening of the multilateral trading system. This thesis examines the spread of such agreement and the extent to which they pose a threat to the multilateral system. Regionalism and multilateralism are complimentary as shown in the case study of the East African Community. The current regional trade agreement management rules are weak and ambiguous and possible amendments for these rules are proposed. / South Africa

This thesis examines whether there is an effect of the Mercosur free trade agreement on export and import between member countries. The study uses an extended gravity model framework on a panel data between the years 1975 to 2017 for 34 countries, including the member countries. Two different regressions were run using OLS and country fixed effect. A Linder effect was also added to the regressions to further understand the impact on trade. The results show a significantly positive effect of the FTA on imports. The FTA yielded insignificant and significantly negative result for OLS and FEM respectively on exports.

O MERCOSUL e a União Européia (UE) firmaram no ano de 1995, o Acordo Marco de Cooperação Inter-Regional, que tinha como objetivo fortalecer as relações bi-regionais e a preparar as condições para a criação de uma Associação Inter-Regional, que abrangesse a área comercial, cooperação econômica, tecnológica, financeira, e também cultural e social. A concretização da Associação representaria um grande ganho para o MERCOSUL devido à importância comercial que a UE representa para o bloco, sendo a sua principal parceira tanto nas exportações quantos nas importações. Desde a assinatura do acordo, os dois blocos realizaram diversas rodadas de negociações, mas não conseguiram avançar na direção de maiores realizações. Um dos principais entraves tem sido a intransigência da UE, principalmente no que diz respeito ao conceder melhores ofertas no setor agrícola. O presente trabalho objetiva, portanto, analisar a evolução das negociações comerciais entre os dois blocos, a fim de identificar os entraves no setor agrícola, que contribuíram para o impedimento da implantação da Associação Inter-Regional. A evolução das rodadas de negociações entre os dois blocos mostrou que o protecionismo agrícola é um dos pontos cruciais para a obtenção de um acordo de livre comércio. O fracasso das negociações provou para o MERCOSUL, que independemente das negociações acontecerem no plano multilateral ou bilateral, a UE não está disposta em maiores concessões. Portanto, enquanto a UE mantiver as subvenções, responsáveis por enormes excedentes na produção agrícola européia, não será possível a obtenção de melhores resultados, que conduzam a implantação de uma área de livre comércio entre MERCOSUL e União Européia. / MERCOSUR and the European Union (EU) signed in 1995, the Framework Agreement on Inter-Regional Cooperation, which aimed to strengthen bi-regional relations and prepare the conditions for the creation of an Interregional Association, covering the commercial area, economic cooperation, technological, financial and also cultural and social. The concretion of the Association would be a great gain for Mercosur due to the commercial importance that the EU accounts for the block, which is its main partner in both exports and imports. Since signing the agreement, the two blocks had several rounds of negotiations, but failed to move toward greater accomplishments. A major obstacle has been the intransigence of the EU, particularly with regard to grant better offers in the agricultural sector. This paper aims, therefore, to examine developments in trade negotiations between the two blocs, in order to identify the barriers in the agricultural sector, which contributed to impeding the implantation of the Inter-Regional. The evolution of rounds of negotiations between the two blocs has shown that agricultural protectionism is one of the crucial points for achieving a free trade agreement. The failure of the negotiations proved to MERCOSUR, that independently the negotiations occur multilaterally or bilaterally, the EU is not willing to further concessions. So, while the EU maintains subsidies, responsible for huge surpluses on European agricultural production, it is not possible to obtain better results, which conduce to establishment of a free trade area between MERCOSUR and the European Union.

As relações entre a União Europeia (UE) e os seus parceiros comerciais incluem Acordos Preferenciais de Comércio (APCs) com países em desenvolvimento para produtos agrícolas e industriais, destacando-se países da África, Caraíbas e Pacífico. A política de caráter cooperativo no setor agrícola da APC-UE, possui por objetivo a preservação do ambiente, segurança alimentar, crescimento econômico e desenvolvimento sustentável. Excetuando-se esses Acordos Preferenciais, a União Europeia possui no setor agrícola um dos segmentos de maior proteção comercial. Trata-se do principal mercado para os produtos agrícolas brasileiros. No entanto, esse setor, no Brasil, poderia obter melhor desempenho caso a UE não praticasse tarifas de importação elevadas aos seus produtos. Assim sendo, aplica-se no presente trabalho o modelo gravitacional para mensurar o efeito de criação ou desvio de comércio, resultado da aplicação de tarifas pela União Europeia com relação aos seus 48 parceiros comerciais selecionados, incluindo-se o Brasil, e também o impacto de um possível Acordo Preferencial de Comércio entre Brasil e União Europeia. A análise enfoca os efeitos para um grupo selecionado de produtos agrícolas, que recebem a incidência de picos tarifários, incluindo-se carne bovina congelada, carne bovina fresca, carne de frango, carne suína, açúcar bruto e suco de fruta. O período considerado para a análise compreende os anos de 1996 a 2013, ou seja, desde o alargamento da União Europeia no ano de 1995. O modelo gravitacional é estimado por meio do modelo de efeitos fixos e os resultados mostram a existência de desvio de comércio com relação às importações europeias de carne bovina fresca (SH 0202) e carne suína (SH 0203) e impacto positivo da concretização de um Acordo Preferencial de Comércio para carne bovina fresca (SH 0201), carne bovina congelada (SH 0202) e carne de frango (SH 0207). Tais resultados confirmam as hipóteses levantadas na literatura com relação à consolidação do referido acordo. Ou seja, os resultados indicam que o Brasil pode aumentar suas exportações de produtos agrícolas para a União Europeia caso ocorra um acordo preferencial que elimine as barreiras tarifárias impostas pelo bloco da UE. / Trade relations between the European Union (EU) and its trading partners have feature for the granting of tariff reduction or exemption for developing countries, through preferential agreements. With regard to preferential trade agreements (PTA) put in place by the European Union, stands out those performed with the group of African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) countries for agricultural and industrial products. The cooperative nature of politics in the ACP-EU agricultural sector has the objective of preserving the environment, food security, economic growth and sustainable development. Except for some preferred sealed agreements with some countries, the European Union has in the agricultural sector, one of the segments most subject to trade protection. With regard to Brazil, the European Union is the main market for its agricultural products. Even so, the Brazilian agricultural sector could have a better performance if the EU did not ascribe excessively high import tariffs to their products. Therefore, a gravity model is used in this analysis to measure the effect of trade creation or trade diversion as a result of the tariff applied by the European Union in relation for 48 selected trading partners, including Brazil and also the impact of a possible Preferential Trade Agreement between Brazil and the European Union. The analysis focuses on the effects for a selected group of agricultural products receiving the incidence of tariff peaks, including frozen beef, fresh beef, chicken, pork, raw sugar and fruit juice The period considered for the analysis covers the years from 1996 to 2013, which incorporates the enlargement of the European Union starting at 1995. The gravity model is estimated using the fixed effects model and the results show the existence of trade diversion with respect to European imports of fresh beef (HS 0202) and pork (HS 0203) and positive impact of the implementation of a Preferential Trade Agreement for fresh beef (HS 0201), frozen beef (HS 0202) and chicken (HS 0207). These results confirm the hypotheses rose in the literature with regard to the consolidation of the Agreement. That is, the results indicate that Brazil could increase its exports of agricultural products to the EU in the event of a preferential agreement eliminating tariff barriers imposed by the EU bloc.