In The News

Protests Greet Yet Another WTO Meeting

Pranab Bardhan September 8, 2003
As the World Trade Organization prepares to meet in Cancun, Mexico, backers and detractors of globalization are clashing again, with each side claiming to represent the interests of the world's poor. Those opposed to globalization in its current form point to an increase in inequality and poverty in countries that have opened up to international capital and corporations, while supporters...

Rich Will Pay If WTO Lets Poor Down

James Wolfensohn September 7, 2003
In advance of this week's WTO meeting in Cancun, World Bank President James Wolfensohn writes that the current Doha round of trade talks offers a real opportunity to improve the lot of developing nations. For this to happen, though, he says that both rich and poor countries have to understand what it means to give and take. "Rich countries must show leadership by reducing protection...

Cancun Trade Meeting Should Leave Investment Issue Alone

Susan Ariel Aaronson August 29, 2003
When the WTO meets in Cancun on September 10, representatives of the nearly 150 members will have a lot on their plates. It is their job to negotiate agreements on many divisive issues and to forge new trade policies on agriculture, services, and intellectual property rights to meet the needs of developing countries. These matters are complex and important enough to warrant adding another...

To Be or Not to Be at Cancun

Ernesto Zedillo August 29, 2003
World trade has increased nearly twenty-fold over the past fifty years, bringing unprecedented prosperity – but mostly to developed countries. As the development round of the World Trade Organization draws closer, many key issues – including agricultural subsidy reform and essential drug access – remain unresolved and deeply contentious. According to Ernesto Zedillo, director of the Yale Center...

Cutting Support Can Help Farmers to Prosper

Stefan Tangermann August 22, 2003
Farm subsidies remain an extremely contentious issue as the widely anticipated WTO meeting in Cancun draws closer. While farmers in developing countries plead with wealthy nations to eliminate trade distorting tariffs and subsidies, farmers in the developed world fear that doing so will destroy their farms and way of life. However, Stefan Tangermann, director for food, agriculture and fisheries...

Farm Deal Puts WTO Talks at Risk

Charlotte Denny August 14, 2003
The US and the EU spoke optimistically about their new agreement on farm subsidies last night, but many developing countries doubt whether tangible change will result. Agricultural reform has been an extremely contentious issue in the WTO, often dividing the developed and the developing worlds. Europe, the United States, and Japan spend billions of dollars a year on agricultural subsidies, a...

Harvesting Poverty

August 11, 2003
Two hundred years ago, the English navy blockaded French ports, cutting the country off from the sugar cane of tropical colonies and forcing Napoleon to push French farmers to grow beet sugar as a replacement. The blockade eventually ended, but the farming of beet sugar did not. Indeed, as this New York Times editorial points out, beet sugar is vehemently protected by EU agricultural policies...