LAUSR

This book is a collection of essays dealing with the efforts of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) to promote trade and development through the so-called “Doha Round” between 2001 and 2015. It is focused on the complex relationships that persist between the global trading system and food security, and how these can be better facilitated through trade instruments. The book has been produced under the auspices of the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) but IFPRI are careful to note that the recommendations do not necessarily reflect any institutional position. The authors are mainly academic researchers with cognate interests and practical advisory experience. It comes out at an appropriate moment in current debate about globalisation and its consequences. Also its publication coincides with dramatic changes in US attitudes to trade, particularly with China. One of the striking features of the 1930s depression was the complete devastation in world trade brought about through national austerity policy in which individual countries attempted to maintain the production base of their economic systems through various protectionist measures. By the close of World War II it was finally recognised that beggar-thy-neighbour trade policies were on the whole self-defeating. The Keynesian focus on aggregate demand became a key characteristic of economic control in most countries, effectively taking over from the “Herbert Hoover approaches” that had failed so miserably in the 1930s following the 1929 stock market crash. At UN level the response on trade was the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), a legal agreement among countries whose overall purpose was to promote international trade by reducing or eliminating trade barriers such as tariffs, quotas or preferential subsidies. GATT was signed by 23 countries in 1947 and remained in effect until the creation of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) in 1994. In practical terms GATT had taken the form of a series of negotiation “rounds”, 9 of which had taken place by 1994. The last was the Uruguay Round completed finally in 2004. At each of these rounds progressive agreements had been reached to allow countries to take advantage of the possibilities of comparative advantage and thereby improve productivity and income growth in all countries. However, by the beginning of the 1990s it had become clear that the international context had begun to change and in many senses irrevocably. Technological changes had begun to increase the complexity of international supply arrangements. The international banking system itself was much less restrictive than it had been and we were beginning to see radical innovations in financial markets designed to manage risk and uncertainty [if not always very successfully]. The creation of the WTO also took place at a watershed moment of considerable expansion in overall world trade volumes. Its overall rationale was the need to regularize trade agreements, adopt formal measures for dispute resolution, and allow for changing global contexts and issues such as control of intellectual property rights. In addition though this had not yet become fully apparent, the impact of the preceding GATTagreements were not really bearing fruit in welfare terms for many underdeveloped countries. Food security (or the lack of it) continued to affect the poorest of the poor. So while the GATT rounds had focussed on general trade measures the creation of the WTO was seen as an opportunity to introduce more direct measures to deal with development and underdevelopment, particularly in agriculture in poorer parts of the world where food security was beginning to be perceived as a major challenge. The * Norman Clark [email protected]