L’intervention des tierces parties dans le règlement des différends à l’OMC présente des spécificités par rapport à l’intervention devant d’autres juridictions internationales. La première spécificité consiste en l’accès très fréquent des tierces parties aux consultations, aux travaux des groupes spéciaux et de l’Organe d’appel. Cette fréquence résulte de règles procédurales plutôt favorables et de la politique judiciaire ouverte du juge de l’OMC. En revanche, les droits procéduraux des tierces parties restent encore très restreints. Ils sont imprécis dans la phase de consultations et limités dans la phase des groupes spéciaux. En outre, l’absence d’effet obligatoire des rapports à leur égard a pour conséquence que les tierces parties sont privées de certains droits, tel celui de faire appel. Dans l’ensemble, ces spécificités leur permettent de jouer un rôle important. Leur intervention peut répondre aux besoins d’information du juge et contribuer à la multilatéralisation et à la légitimité du système. Elle peut aider à défendre des intérêts à différents niveaux et surtout elle devient un moyen de renforcer les capacités des pays en développement. Elle comporte parfois des risques et limites pour la mise en œuvre des garanties de la régularité de la procédure, pour certaines évolutions du système et pour la protection des droits et intérêts légitimes des parties principales. Toutefois, ces répercussions demeurent minimes ou sont atténuées grâce aux stratégies mises en place par les parties principales et au contrôle du juge de l’OMC. Dès lors, le bilan de l’intervention qui apparaît globalement positif plaide en faveur du renforcement des droits des tierces parties / The third party intervention in the WTO dispute settlement has specificities compared to that existing in other international jurisdictions. The first one include very frequent access of third parties in the consultations, in the panel and the Appellate Body proceedings. This frequency results from rather favorable procedural rules and an open judicial policy developed by WTO judge in favor of the third parties presence. Contrary to this, the procedural rights of third parties are still very limited. They are imprecise in the consultation phase and limited in the panel phase. In addition, third parties do not have certain rights (for example, the right to appeal) because of the absence of the binding effects of adopted reports on themselves. On the whole, these specificities allow third parties to play really an important role in this system. Their intervention can meet the judge’s information needs and contribute to the multilateralization and legitimacy of the system at a whole. It can also help to defend interests at various levels and thus becomes a procedural mean to build and strengthen the capacity and skills of developing country Members. Their intervention can sometimes involve risks and limitations on the implementation of the guaranties of due process, on certain developments of the system and on the protection of legitimate rights and interests of the main parties. However, these effects are either minimal or mitigated through certain strategies implemented by the parties to dispute or through the control of the WTO judge. Therefore, the results of the intervention which appear generally positive advocates the strengthening of third party’s rights

In August 2012, after eighteen years, Russia was officially accepted as a member of WTO, which allows it to capitalize on many advantages that arise from international trade but also brings a lot of commitments. The aim of this paper is to investigate the obligations that Russia undertook during WTO access procedures and to determine, based on the structure of its foreign trade, the effects of Russia's WTO accession on its economy, as well as the level of its influence on trade relations with the USA, EU and China.

The thesis discusses the accession of Vietnam to the WTO and the influence of the membership of this organization for the country's economy. Already during the accession procedure Vietnam made changes to the legislation to bring it in line with the principles and rules of the WTO. Furthermore, Vietnam committed to reduce tariffs and open up the services sector to cross-border trade and foreign capital. The thesis aims to analyze the impact of these changes on the economy. The work focuses mainly on the impact on foreign trade and foreign direct investment, which were influenced by the reduction of tariffs and better investment and business environment. Following these changes, structure of employment also changed which is examined in the last part of the thesis.

Entre 1992 e 2005, representantes de 11.921 organizações não governamentais (ONGs) participaram de conferências realizadas pela Organização das Nações Unidas (ONU) e pela Organização Mundial do Comércio (OMC). Tendo em vista que, tradicionalmente, apenas os representantes dos Estados-membros dessas duas organizações seriam admitidos, a crescente presença de atores não-governamentais nesses eventos foi considerada uma das evidências empíricas do surgimento de uma sociedade civil global. Contudo, alguns críticos afirmam que a sociedade civil não seria global, mas concentrada geograficamente em alguns países. Nosso objetivo é analisar se, de fato, existe tal concentração e quais suas principais características. Com esse objetivo, analisamos a distribuição geográfica das sedes das ONGs credenciadas para esses eventos, discutindo dois dos principais argumentos contrários à idéia de sociedade civil global: o primeiro afirma que a sociedade civil não é global porque seus atores estão concentrados em países do Norte (gerando um desnível Norte-Sul, com predomínio numérico e político de ONGs do Norte sobre as do Sul); o segundo, defende que a concentração das ONGs espelha as atuais constelações de poder em âmbito internacional (pois as ONGs seriam, predominantemente, de países localizados no eixo Europa-América Anglo-Saxônica). Considerando que todos seríamos parte da sociedade civil global, procuramos constatar de onde são as pessoas e organizações que efetivamente têm participado das discussões e decisões a respeito de questões que dizem respeito a todos (os habitantes do planeta). / Between 1992 and 2005, 11921 representatives of nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) participated in conferences held by the United Nations (UN) and the World Trade Organization (WTO). Given that, traditionally, only representatives of Member States of these two organizations would be admitted, the growing presence of \"nongovernmental\" actors in these events was considered one of the empirical evidence of an emerging \"global\" civil society. However, some critics argue that civil society is not global, but geographically concentrated in some countries. Our goal is to examine whether, in fact, exist that concentration and their main characteristics. With this objective, we analyzed the geographic distribution of headquarters of accredited NGOs to conferences, discussing the two main arguments against the idea of global civil society: the first asserts that civil society is not \"global\" because their actors are concentrated in North countries (creating a North-South divide, with numerical and political dominance of NGOs from the North on the South); the second claims that the concentration of NGOs reflects the current constellation of power in the international arena (as the NGOs would be predominantly of countries located in EuropeAmerica Anglo-Saxon). Whereas we would all be part of global civil society, we see where are the people and organizations that have effectively participated in the discussions and decisions about issues that concern all (the inhabitants of the planet).

The Dispute Settlement Understanding (DSU) established under the World Trade Organisation, is one of the most notable achievements of the multilateral trading system. African countries need to engage more in this emerging system to defend their trade and economic interests, especially in this time of increasing integration in the world trading system. It is submitted that the weak participation of African countries in the DSU can have negative economic and trade implications on Africa, as it minimises the influence these countries could exert on the development of the DSU legal system at this stage of particular importance to the evolution of international trade law in addition to its direct economic and trade costs. All complaints about impediments in the DSU cannot be rightly claimed to be the core reasons for weak African participation in the system, as the system still stand out as a rule-based with equal treatment to Developed and Developing countries. Additionally, the low participation of African countries cannot be justified by the degree of development basis only, as other developing counties have been very successful in this regard and some African countries managed to make use of the system in a very positive way. Moreover, this dissertation states that the effect of other internal constraints that are reported to hinder African participation, such as lack of sufficient financial resources, limited technical expertise and political factors, could be minimised through joint African cooperation, and by developing national strategies to deal with DSU. Egypt is a good example in this regard; despite its limited financial and technical expertise, it managed to gain accumulated experience through its various forms of engaging in the DSU, and consequently managed to defend its trade and economic interests. The establishment of a national organisational framework to deal with the DSU assisted in the preparation of national expertise that is gaining increasing experience. Egypt’s incorporation of national legislations on Anti-Dumping, Investment Protection, Intellectual Property Rights and other WTO agreements definitely supports the Egyptian position in the DSU. African countries are called to work within the African Union and on the national levels to make the best use of the system to serve their developmental goals. National strategies should be formulated regarding WTO dispute settlement engagement. These should include sound legislations and clear rules of engagement between different departments and the private sector to enable African countries to overcome the major constraints currently limiting their participation. African countries can depend partially on the support system offered by organisations like ACWL, UNCTAD and pro bone assistance from international law firms and NGO’s to overcome the financial and lack of experience constraints. / Dissertation (LLM)--University of Pretoria, 2010. / Public Law / unrestricted

Food regime theory emerged in the 1980s as a tool to delineate the history of the modern food system. Scholars insist that we have arrived at the third and putative corporate food regime that is dominated by a select group of agribusiness corporations. The corporate food regime"s ascent to dominance will be presented here as a product of the realization of neoliberal trade policies at the urging of the World Trade Organization. Initially promising development to fledgling countries, the WTO"s forays into agriculture have amounted to nothing less than a catastrophe for the Global South. The hope that developing countries would be able to trade their way out of debt has long been abandoned, and the gap between the developed and developing world has only been further exacerbated as a result of trade liberalization. Worse yet, the WTO"s Agreement on Agriculture was intentionally littered with loopholes that allow Northern countries to egregiously subsidize crops that are then exported off to Southern markets at artificially low prices, crippling local producers in the process. Through examining import and export flows in the Global South since the trade agreement, this cruel feature of the modern food system will become evident as will the subsequent jump in agribusiness" profits amid the direst of...

Considering the effectiveness of the WTO and global governance in general as insufficient to overcome growing problems in governing a globalizing world, I pursue four objectives. By shedding light on the changes in the environment of the WTO and their implications for the working of the WTO, I first want to underpin the case for structural reforms. My second, and central, aim is to recommend a more effective structure for the WTO. Thirdly, I draw general lessons for global governance from the example of the WTO. And finally, I assess the adequacy of my innovative research design. The research design is characterized by a broad analytical framework that traces how regional integration among nation states and legalization of international institutions affect bargaining and enforcement of international agreements; additionally, it considers trends that affect the WTO. The interdisciplinary theoretical framework combines insights from the fields of international relations, international law, and international economics, and builds upon rationalist and constructivist perspectives.

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China´s WTO accession has inevitably influenced the country´s labor market. Based on empirical estimation and theoretical reasoning, the effects of China´s WTO accession have not significantly influenced employment in the agricultural industry, the automobile industry, the financial industry and total employment. Most obviously, the impact on employment in the textile and apparel industry has had a more positive influence.

Unlike many other international instruments, accession to the WTO does not simply require the commitment of the government to sign and ratify the multilateral agreements. A country needs to make considerable legislative and administrative changes to comply with the standards of the WTO and its members to finalize the negotiation for accession. For governments with impure free market economy policy the challenges amplify. The government of Ethiopia publicly pronounces its adherence to the ideology of the developmental state. On the other hand the nucleus of WTO principles is progressive trade liberalization. Therefore, this dissertation tries to provide some reflection on the paradox created as a result of the divergence in priority between WTO principles and developmental state in the context of Ethiopian desire to join the organization. The research is an interdisciplinary work. The issues that will be discussed are not purely legal in their nature. They have legal, political and economic dimensions. And the main focus of the paper is on trade in services and foreign investment negotiation aspect of the accession. Furthermore the objective of the dissertation is to give some insight for policy makers about the challenges and opportunities that „Developmental State‟ ideology will pose in the accession process of Ethiopia to the WTO. The research is divided into five chapters. Chapter one gives introductory remarks about the concept of the developmental state and accession to the WTO. The limitations of the WTO accession process and an overview of the features of developmental state in the world and particularly in Ethiopia are also briefly discussed in the chapter. The origin and concept of developmental state in the world, in Africa and Ethiopia is discussed in some detail under chapter two. The chapter also tries to show the impact of developmental state policies in the laws of the country that are going to be deliberated in the process of accession. Chapter three is about accession to the WTO. In this chapter the requirements, benefits, challenges and procedures of accession are dealt in depth. The writer debates and tries to show the fact that the system is slowly shifting from rule based negotiation to power and precedent based negotiation. By analyzing the laws of Ethiopia that are inspired by the principles of developmental state against the legal and precedent requirements to join the WTO, I tried to correlate the findings of chapter two and three in chapter four. Specific strategies and advises on how to move the negotiation forward on certain areas are also outlined in this chapter. Finally, conclusion and my summarized recommendations are placed under chapter five. / Economics / LL.M (with specialization in International Economic Law)