Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
(Greenaway and Milner, 2008), but it is increasingly argued that rules
governing world trade are rigged in favour of the world's richer nations.
Although there is a substantial body of literature that critiques the
most effective ways to manage and regulate international trade
(Stiglitz and Charlton, 2005), debates over the relationship between
trade and development have tended to focus on three main issues: the
role of the World Trade Organization (WTO) in regulating global trade;
the extent to which trade liberalization acts as a driver or barrier to
development in the global South; and the free trade versus fair trade
approaches to tackling global inequalities.
Global Governance: the World Trade
Organization (WTO)
The immediate aftermath of World War II saw the introduction of the
General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), which was a multi-
lateral forum created to reconstruct the world economy via free trade
and economic growth in 1947. GATT was founded on four main prin-
ciples (Gwynne, 2008: 201): non-discrimination, reciprocity, transpar-
ency, and fairness; it was replaced in 1994, however, by the World
Trade Organization (WTO) following the Uruguay Round of trade
negotiations which highlighted the need for a more democratic and
stronger institution with similar legal powers to the United Nations.
The central goals of the WTO are to improve access to, and security
of, international markets for its member states. In 2008 the WTO had
153 member countries, two-thirds of which were from the global
South; however, critics like Oxfam argue that their interests are still
marginalized due to their dependency on trade in primary products
and the alignment of the WTO with the interest of corporate capital
(Narlikar, 2005).
In its defence, the WTO argues that it helps countries in the global
South by safeguarding their interests through policies on anti-dumping,
technical assistance and trading support. For example, the WTO's
Agreement on
Trade-related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights
(TRIPS)
has focused on increasing access to generic HIV drugs in
sub-Saharan Africa. The WTO also argues that the
Doha Development
Agenda
(DDA),
launched in 2001, places development firmly at the
centre of the international trade agenda. The DDA requires countries
of the global South to undertake further steps towards trade liberaliza-
tion, which the WTO argues will help them achieve greater economic
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