Global Economic Governance – The WTO

Question: Describe about the Global Economic Governance The WTO. Answer: Critical evaluation of why developing and developed countries are turning away from the WTO membership WTO (World Trade Organization) is constantly facing criticisms regarding the fact that the body is somehow being reluctant for reacting on the individual needs of the developing and thus, is hampering the environmental as well as economic sustainability. Questions have been raised against the governance level of WTO. Some challenges faced by WTO can be summarized as below: Internationalization of the supply chains Unilateral tariff reduction Mutual trade openings Deep integration at the local levels Services and servicification Natural resources New players and small players With the constant growth of the emerging economies, there had been internationalization of the supply and distribution channels. As identified in several researches, this has affected the level of the offshore production level over the trade policies. Again some scholarly works written by Busch, et al., (2004) reveal that reductions of the unilateral tariff charges on the offshore productions have facilitated the open trade practices. Empirical evidences reveal this particular step has created intricacies for the WTO. Several researchers have argued that the emerging economies of the world have reduced the tariff charges that have opened new prospects for the exporters from the developed economies to undergo multilateral negotiations. Contradicted by several scholarly works, it can be argued that developed countries of the world found it not so much worthy in getting committed with the under-developed countries for less tariff charges and thus, it is believed that accessibility to multilateral tariff charges is disadvantageous for the developing countries. To reduce the effects of these challenges, coalition bargaining have increased that depict the capacity of the developing countries to lobby. Even though WTOs transparency to withstand with the internal transparency has increased, but still there exist questions about the responsibilities and the internal dynamics to respond to the coalitions. Levy Prakash, (2003) depicted that coalition based representation were regarded as advantageous for the developing countries and that easily helped WTO to restructure the negotiation processes. Under developed countries often raise complaints against WTOs functions to provide adequate information about trade negotiations and rule operation. Since 1989, Trade Policy Review Mechanism has been the only regime for practicing trade facilities in the developing countries and most of the under-developed member nations of WTO failed to shows reluctance in participating in both domestic as well as international operations to cope up with the policy changes (Ruth, 2014). Conversely, Magdalena Bexell, et al., (2010) have raised acquaintance that civil society groups in the developing countries stated that the WTO has however failed to accomplish the deal on food production in consideration to the vested interests on behalf of the developed economies. However, as contradicted by several researchers, the Nairobi Conference is about to appeal to almost 5000 delegates from nearly 163 WTO member nations and two new members would join WTO like Liberia and Afghanistan. Some activists have made statements that it is not worthy to expect international regimes on food production as the WTO is regarded as system that breeds the issues of world. The WTO has failed to the developing countries not only in terms of food production deals but in several other sectors cotton, trade agreements, agricultural subsidies, legal costs, medicines, protectionist economic policies and decision making perspectives for the developing and developed member countries. References Busch, Lawrence and Bain, Carmen (2004) New! Improved? The Transformation of the Global Agrifood System, Rural Sociology, 2004, Vol.69(2), p.321. Levy, D. L. Prakash, A. (2003). Bargains old and new: multinational corporations in global governance. Business and Politics, 5(2), 131-150. Magdalena Bexell, Jonas Tallberg and Anders Uhlin (2010). Democracy in global governance: The promises and pitfalls of transnational actors 16 Global Governance 81. Ruth A Houghton (2014), A puzzle for international law: NGOs at the United Nations 2(2) North East Law Review 1