In The News

Big Bang Expansion of the European Union

Shada Islam January 28, 2003
The expansion of the European Union to include another 75 million people in Eastern and Central Europe is an event of monumental proportion. Negotiations remain underway as 10 new countries adjust their economies and polities to EU standards on agriculture, trade, human rights, and other issues. Meanwhile, people around the globe are taking stock of what a larger EU means for their region. -...

Will the Doha Round Implode in 2003?

Ernesto Zedillo January 24, 2003
The current round of trade liberalization negotiations suffered major setbacks in 2002. Developed and developing member countries of the World Trade Organization fought over intellectual property rights, agricultural subsidies, and rampant protectionism masquerading as special and differential treatment, among other issues. Here, the director of the Yale Center for the Study of Globalization and...

American Investor Protection is Protectionist

Benn Steil January 15, 2003
The world of finance is often thought to be the most truly globalized economic sector. But Benn Steil, André Meyer senior fellow in international economics at the Council on Foreign Relations, reminds us in this article that even such a free-market trumpeter as the US is still quite protectionist when it comes to its own financial markets. Despite the failure of Enron and the subsequent...

U.S. Threatens to Act Against Europeans Over Modified Foods

Elizabeth Becker January 10, 2003
US Trade Representative Robert Zoellick said yesterday that the European Union's position on genetically modified (GM) foods was "immoral" and caused greater suffering in starving African nations. The EU has banned imports of GM foods, and earlier last year several African nations refused American food aid for fear that GM foods from the US would contaminate their own local crops...

Turkey Saying No to Accepting G.I.'s in Large Numbers

Michael R. Gordon December 4, 2002
Turkey’s newly elected government, which has strong Islamic roots, announced its decision to deny access to substantial number of American GI’s in case of war against Iraq. The government reached this decision, officials reported, because of the need to take into consideration public sentiment, even though Turkey considers America to be a very close ally. The agreement is a product of a long...

Spotlight Falls on a Heavily Globalised Industry

Daniel Dombey November 20, 2002
After the oil tanker, the Prestige, broke in half off the Spanish coast and began gushing forth its slick contents, thousands of fishing families and businesses who depend on the ocean and pristine beaches began asking who should be held liable. As this Financial Times article notes, "the Prestige, registered in the Bahamas, owned by a Liberian company, managed by a Greek company and...

The Challenge for the Multilateral Trade System

Guy de Jonquières November 18, 2002
Is multi-lateral trade the only way to pursue globalization? A recent trend to forge regional and bilateral trade agreements has Supachai Panitchpakdi, WTO director-general, arguing that "by discriminating against third countries and creating a complex network of trade regimes, such [bilateral] agreements pose systemic risk to the global trading system." But the US and other countries...