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Chapter 3 begins by accounting for the roots of agricultural exceptionalism in the GATT, and shows how it was spelt out in GATT trade rules. The remainder of the chapter examines the specific provisions of the Uruguay Round Agreement on Agriculture (URAA), demonstrating the erosion of agricultural exceptionalism in comparison to the ‘old’ GATT provisions, but also showing how the URAA allowed WTO member states considerable leeway to maintain high levels of agricultural support and protection. It details the three pillars of the URAA: market access and tariffication; domestic support with its green, blue, and amber boxes; and constraints on export subsidies.

This chapter discusses the manner in which the GATT binds trade instruments, that is, instruments affecting either imported or domestic goods, but not both. The chapter proceeds as follows. Section 2 focuses on the prohibition of quantitative restrictions (QRs) under the GATT. Section 3 discusses tariff protection in the GATT context. Finally, section 4 surveys the GATT disciplines on export subsidies.

This chapter focuses on the Agreement on Agriculture, one of the two sector-specific agreements that remained outside the GATT which was reintroduced following the successful conclusion of the WTO. Farm goods were not subject to the GATT disciplines so this agreement was designed to integrate farm trade into the mainstream disciplines governing trade in goods. The chapter discusses the requirement for members to replace all forms of protection in place with tariff protections with the onset of the agreement. The chapter discusses the historic negotiations that have taken place since in order to liberalize the trade in farm goods as well as the use of border measures, domestic support, export subsidies, and minimum access requirements.

This chapter aims to contribute to a better understanding of the following two-fold question: To what extent can a contested practice like the maintenance of an undervalued real exchange rate be dealt with effectively under existing international law? Intrinsically related, which are the key aspects on which the IMF’s code of conduct would require reform in order to tackle contemporary challenges to the stability of the international monetary system, such as global current account imbalances? After assessing whether the code of conduct in IMF Article IV:1 constitutes an effective framework for securing systemic stability, this chapter assesses the extent to which WTO rules might constitute an alternative for tackling an undervalued real exchange rate as a prohibited export subsidy. Finally, the chapter looks at overarching conceptual issues and at the G-20’s ongoing efforts to reduce global current account imbalances as one of the underlying key challenges to systemic stability.

The 1995 removal of a railway transportation subsidy for exports of grains from Western Canada led to large aggregate changes in technology adoption and land use. We decompose the impact of the reform on seeding methods and cropping patterns to study how aggregate changes were driven by reallocation versus within-farm adaptation. Using detailed census data covering over 30,000 farms in Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba, Canada we find a range of new results. We find that the reform-induced shift from producing low-value to high-value crops for export, the adoption of new seeding technologies and reduction in summerfallow observed at the aggregate level between 1991 and 2001 were driven mainly by the within-farm effect. In the longer run, however, reallocation of land from shrinking and exiting farms to growing and new farms explains more than half of the aggregate changes in technology adoption and land use between 1991 and 2011.

Policies designed to protect and subsidize agriculture have been a key part of the European Union (EU). For much of the past 50 years, critics have argued that its Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) contributed to global poverty and food insecurity by exerting downward pressure on agricultural commodity prices in world markets. Increasing pressures for policy change from inside and outside the EU led to a series of reforms over the past three decades. These reforms caused a shift in the nature of the subsidies, with a much smaller impact on production and trade, while maintaining support for farmers. Subsidies have been increasingly linked to achieving environmental objectives. After these reforms of the CAP, the EU now faces a somewhat paradoxical situation: while its agricultural policies no longer push global agricultural and food prices down, global food security problems are now attributed to high food prices.

When the European Economic Community (EEC) was founded in 1958, agriculture was included in the common market, and the Treaty of Rome specified there would be a common agricultural policy (CAP). Following the Stresa Conference, the Commission and the member states developed the basic principles that would underpin the CAP: common pricing, financial solidarity, and Community Preference. The CAP that emerged in the 1960s was largely based on market price support, which required three policy instruments: high import tariffs, intervention buying of products surplus to consumer requirements, and export subsidies to dispose of product on world markets. Despite the efforts of Sicco Mansholt, policy-makers resisted CAP reform. The budget cost of the CAP, and the launch of the Uruguay Round of GATT negotiations in 1986, meant the policy was ripe for reform.

This chapter illustrates the findings of this work with three case studies. It demonstrates how the understanding of extraterritoriality developed and defended here differs from and improves upon previous accounts. The chapter analyses bilateral cooperation in higher education between Ireland and Bahrain, the implications of a Special Economic Zone, run by Chinese shareholders in Nigeria, and export subsidies for sugar produced in the EU. The case studies cover a range of issues that implicate civil and political, as well as economic and social rights. In each of these case studies, I compare my account of jurisdiction as political power with previous accounts of jurisdiction and extraterritoriality in general. In detailing the disagreements, I show that the present approach is more successful than others in explaining extraterritorial human rights obligations of states. It allows us to assess very different scenarios according to the same principle: jurisdiction is required, and it is based on political power and the application of rules because this is what integrity and equality make it. The case studies show the present theory’s potential to supply plausible guidance in a principled manner, and across a very wide spectrum of cases.

The ‘July package’ includes an agreement to negotiate a credible end date for the parallel elimination of all forms of export subsidies and to further harmonize domestic support measures, combined with an overall cut and a down-payment regarding internal support. This chapter suggests four elements for keeping the negotiations on positive track. First, the ‘end game’ cannot be started before more detailed options for achieving the objectives of the negotiations in all three pillars have been elaborated. Second, detailed benchmarks should be agreed by the next World Trade Organization Ministerial Conference in December 2005. Third, while the Round cannot be completed until the agriculture negotiations are ripe for conclusion such agreement to conclude the agriculture negotiations will depend on roughly equivalent progress in other areas. Fourth, in order to maintain the procedural dynamism in the agriculture negotiations, participants must continue to search for creative ways in finalizing detailed modalities.

Techno-nationalism is governments’ protectionist behaviour towards technology innovation and transfer.— Development of law and policy to secure national interest stems from belief that restricting transfer of innovation will benefit national economic growth and protect wealth and energy independency. Although not a new phenomenon, there is a global techno-nationalism revival in the energy transition context. This chapter looks at the compatibility of techno-nationalist measures with the WTO international law regime. It reviews how national legal frameworks support these policies by reference to energy transition legislation, public procurement, local content requirements, and intellectual property rights. It compares nation states’ techno-nationalism behaviour to the duties to share and transfer technology innovation in a liberalized and competitive environment. Among the applicable rules are UNFCC and WTO technology transfer requirements, including green goods provisions. Finally, the margin of appreciation for national governments and the need for legal innovation to ensure technology transfer are examined. .