World Trade Report 2012: Executive Summary
| Date | 01 October 2012 |
| DOI | 10.1177/0015732515120304 |
| Published date | 01 October 2012 |
| Subject Matter | Article |
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WORLD TRADE REPORT 2012
Executive Summary
THIS year’s World Trade Report ventures beyond tariffs to examine
other policy measures that can affect trade. As tariffs have fallen
in the years since the birth of the General Agreement on Tariffs and
Trade (GATT) in 1948, attention has progressively shifted towards
non-tariff measures (NTMs). The range of NTMs is vast, complex,
driven by multiple policy motives, and ever-changing. Public policy
objectives underlying NTMs have evolved. The drivers of change are
many, including greater interdependency in a globalizing world,
increased social awareness, and growing concerns regarding health,
safety, and environmental quality. Many of these factors call for a
deepening of integration, wresting attention away from more
traditional and shallower forms of cooperation. Trade in services is a
part of this development and has come under greater scrutiny, along
with the policies that influence services trade.
The continuing multiplication of policy directions and
preoccupations presents challenges for international cooperation. The
GATT/WTO has addressed some of the challenges created by NTMs,
both through its dispute settlement mechanism and successive rounds
of GATT/WTO negotiations. The Tokyo and Uruguay rounds, in
particular, focused on a number of NTMs, including standards, which
were progressively subject to heightened multilateral discipline. The
Uruguay Round also marked the inclusion of services in the WTO.
Regulatory measures such as technical barriers to trade (TBT) and
sanitary and phytosanitary (SPS) measures in goods and domestic
regulation in services raise new and pressing challenges for
international cooperation in the 21st century. They also pose acute
transparency issues. More than many other measures, they reflect
public policy goals (such as ensuring health, safety and well-being of
consumers). Their trade effects may be incidental, but they can also
be designed and applied in a manner that unnecessarily frustrates
trade. Moreover, they raise a number of issues that are specific to
governments and firms in developing countries. The sheer breadth of
WORLD TRADE REPORT 2012: EXECUTIVE SUMMARY 63
the subject area has meant that the focus of this report is on TBT/SPS
measures and domestic regulation in services.
A. Introduction
Section A of the Report presents an overview of the history of
non-tariff measures in the GATT/WTO. This overview discusses how
motivations for using NTMs have evolved, complicating this area of
trade policy but not changing the core challenge of managing the
relationship between public policy and trading opportunities.
Section B examines the reasons why governments use NTMs and
services measures and the extent to which public policy interventions
may also distort international trade. The phenomenon of offshoring
and the cross effects of services measures on goods trade are also
considered. The section analyzes choices among alternative policy
instruments from a theoretical and empirical perspective. Finally, case
studies are presented on the use of NTMs in particular contexts. These
include the recent financial crisis, climate change policy and food safety
concerns. The case studies consider how far measures adopted may
pose a challenge for international trade.
Section C of the Report surveys available sources of information
on NTMs and services measures and evaluates their relative strengths
and weaknesses. It uses this information to establish a number of
“stylized facts”, first about NTMs (TBT/SPS measures in particular)
and then about services measures. Section D discusses the magnitude
and the trade effects of NTMs and services measures in general, before
focusing on TBT/SPS measures and domestic regulation in services.
It also examines how regulatory harmonization and/or mutual
recognition of standards help to reduce the trade-hindering effects of
the diversity of TBT and SPS measures and domestic regulation in
services.
Section E looks at international cooperation on NTMs and services
measures. The first part reviews the economic rationale for such
cooperation and discusses the efficient design of rules on NTMs in a
trade agreement. The second part looks at how cooperation has
occurred on TBT/SPS measures and services regulation in the
multilateral trading system, and within other international forums
and institutions. The third part of the section deals with the legal
analysis of the treatment of NTMs in the GATT/WTO dispute system
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