RESOURCES

COMPETITION REGIMES IN THE WORLD: A CIVIL SOCIETY REPORT. By the Consumer Unity and Trust Society's Centre for Competition, Investment and Economic Regulation (CUTS-CCIER), 2005. Released at the UN's Fifth Review Conference on Competition in Atalya, Turkey, this CUTS-CCIER and International Network of Civil Society Organisations on Competition (INCSOC) book is a compilation of brief essays from across the world on countries' competition regimes. The publication offers an introductory chapter on the historical evolution of global competition regimes. The book then focuses on specific competition policy case examples from 117 countries including Botswana, the UK, India, Brazil, Ethiopia and Senegal. Country studies are primarily based on the voluntary contribution of INCSOC -- a network of civil society organisations -- members. The publication concludes by offering recommendations based on the data collected to promote a more healthy competitive culture. For further information on this report contact Rijit Sengupta, c-cier@cuts.org or rsg@cuts.org.

IS THE WTO IS THE ONLY WAY? SAFEGUARDING MULTILATERAL ENVIRONMENTAL AGREEMENTS FROM INTERNATIONAL TRADE RULES AND SETTLING TRADE AND ENVIRONMENT DISPUTES OUTSIDE THE WTO. By Stefanie Pfahl. Adelphi Consult, Greenpeace International and Friends of the Earth Europe, 2005. This joint briefing paper explores a set of alternatives to the WTO as a forum both for the clarification of the relationship between the WTO and multilateral environmental agreements (MEAs) and the adjudication of trade and environment disputes. The paper addresses the need to secure a safe political and legal space for the environment and outlines a number of alternative approaches, which would enable governments to move the current negotiations on the relationship between trade rules and MEAs from the WTO to a more suitable forum. The objective of the paper is to provide information on the most relevant alternatives to the WTO currently available. It also elaborates on a few proposals for institutional reforms that would strengthen these alternative institutional options, paying particular attention to the role of the UN Environment Programme (UNEP). Available at http://www.foeeurope.org/publications/2005/alternatives_wto.pdf.

IMPACT OF TRADE LIBERALIZATION ON AGRICULTURE. By Dr. Wajid H. Pirzada. ActionAid Pakistan, 2005. The process of trade liberalization was initiated in many of developing countries under Structural Adjustment Programs (SAPs). Developing countries implemented these programs in conjunction with World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF) loans, involving substantial trade liberalisation accompanied by fiscal and monetary austerity. As such, effects specific to the implementation of Uruguay Round commitments, particularly the WTO Agreement on Agriculture (AoA), are difficult to identify and distinguish from SAPs. This paper asserts that while trade liberalisation will create many losers, there will also be some winners. Among them will be the corporate giants, which among them control three quarters of global trade in cereals. These companies depend upon subsidised access to surpluses in Europe and North America and upon access to developing country markets to sell these surpluses. Pirzada finds that the AoA threatens and undermines sustainable agriculture, agricultural biodiversity and rights of small farmers and communities, particularly in the South. The author asserts that the AoA poses a powerful threat to rural livelihoods and that the implications for rural poverty and food insecurity in the South are enormous. Available online at http://www.actionaid.org/pakistan/images/Impact%20of%20Trade.pdf.

WHY DEVELOPING COUNTRIES NEED TARIFFS? HOW WTO NAMA NEGOTIATIONS COULD DENY DEVELOPING COUNTRIES' RIGHT TO A FUTURE. By Ha-Joon Chang. South Centre, November 2005. This South Centre publication asserts that the non-agricultural market access (NAMA) negotiations are heading towards a developmental disaster. Chang believes that if developed countries are able to force developing countries to massively cut (or even altogether eliminate) industrial tariffs on a line-by-line basis in an irreversible manner, the latters' prospects for economic development are truly bleak. The author uses a historical analysis of NAMA to show how, contrary to what many developed countries suggest, tariff protection for industries that are not yet profitable can be central to their success. By contrast, free trade works well only in the fantasy theoretical world of perfect markets. Indeed, Chang reveals how trade liberalisation works only when it happens gradually and selectively as part of a long-term industrial policy. Virtually all of today's developed countries built up their economies using government intervention such as tariffs and subsidies throughout the 19th century and most of the 20th century. Thus, the arguments deployed by the developed countries against the use of protection and subsidies by developing countries can only be understood as another effort by the rich world to "kick away the ladder" of development from developing countries. The paper recommends that the current NAMA negotiations be suspended until a new text that ensures developing countries receive the largest possible degree of policy space can be agreed upon. Available online at http://www.southcentre.org/publications/SouthPerspectiveSeries/WhyDevCountriesNeedTariffs.pdf.

TRADITIONAL KNOWLEDGE, BIODIVERSITY, BENEFIT-SHARING AND THE PATENT SYSTEM: ROMANTICS V. ECONOMICS? By Hanns Ullrich. European University Institute - Department of Law (LAW), 2005. This paper begins by examining the various ways in which biodiversity-related traditional knowledge may be passively or actively defended or protected. It discusses the conflicts that can emerge when the market-oriented system of intellectual property (IP) protection is put at the service of regulatory schemes aimed at non-market goals. Furthermore, Ullrich asserts that these conflicts can be particularly acute when the acquisition of patents is subject to additional and not directly-related disclosure requirements, and when the exploitation of patents is conditioned on "equitable benefit sharing." The paper concludes that such burdening of patent protected innovation with specific environmental and developmental charges will result in negative synergies which may have a counterproductive impact on the attainment of the regulatory objectives of protecting biodiversity and of promoting development. Furthermore, the technological neutrality of patent protection as an incentive mechanism for innovation in general may be compromised as well. Available online at http://papers.ssrn.com/paper.taf?abstract_id=838107.