In The News

Africa's Time Has Come…

Larry Elliot September 28, 2005
This year's G-8 Summit saw unprecedented cooperation on development issues, but the progress made at Gleneagles was abruptly disrupted by the London bombings on July 7. After the attacks, Western leaders quickly lost interest in plans for debt relief and improved aid flows, turning their attention towards coping with terrorism and election campaigns. G-8 plans were submitted to a special...

A Trade Fiction

Ernesto Zedillo September 8, 2005
Ernesto Zedillo, director of the Yale Center for the Study of Globalization, outlines in this Forbes Magazine commentary a fictional triumph for the Doha Round of trade negotiations. In the fantasy, the Doha Round sets the stage for a multilateral trading system that will soon lift all protectionist trade restrictions, a liberalization of services, and worldwide acknowledgement of the principles...

The Legacy of Lee Kyung Hae

John Feffer August 29, 2005
The organic farms that line the Han River in South Korea may be the country's agricultural future – and sadly, they tell the story of its troubled past and present. More broadly, the Korean agricultural crisis is a story of small farmers forced to negotiate among the shifting currents of globalization. The industrialization of South Korea's agriculture, the Green Revolution, rendered...

The Creative Evolution of World Trade

Susan Esserman August 23, 2005
Often subject to accusations of inadequate transparency and insufficient accountability, the World Trade Organization took a big step toward more open practices. A dispute panel on hormone-fed beef in the EU has decided to open hearings to the public – allowing closed-circuit television cameras to record the proceedings. Many delegates oppose the move, contending that some level of secrecy is...

Africa Needs Fair Trade, Not Charity

Mary Robinson August 23, 2005
Since the July G-8 summit and Live 8 concerts, the topic of African development has received unusual public attention. While the conversations have focused primarily on aid and debt relief, according to Mary Robinson, one topic has received inadequate treatment in international policy circles: free trade. Recalling her travels to cotton producer Mali and sugar producer Mozambique, Robinson...

CAFTA's Close Call A Warning to US Policy Makers

Edward Gresser August 9, 2005
Passing both the Senate and the House by slim margins, the approval of CAFTA – a free-trade agreement linking the US with the five Central American states and the Dominican Republic – was a narrow victory for the Bush administration. CAFTA will only have a marginal effect on the US economy – so why such a close vote? As Edward Gresser writes, the new initiative addresses protected goods such as...

To Soothe Anger Over Subsidies, US Cotton Tries Wooing Africa

Scott Kilman August 5, 2005
Jim Butler, deputy undersecretary at the US Department of Agriculture, was greeted with fanfare when he visited Mali, pledging US support to help increase the productivity of cotton farming there. The United States has recently taken an interest in "helping" West African cotton farmers produce more effectively, but the motivation may be more just benevolence. As developing nations...