Bolstering Global Trade: Governance A Work Program for the WTO presented by the High-Level Board of Experts on the Future of Global Trade Governance

The WTO provides the foundation of the rules-based global trading system that has played a critical role in sup- porting growth in global GDP during recent decades. Preserving the salience of the WTO is vital in managing the adjustment pressures from globalization and sustaining the cooperation needed to govern trade relations in a world in which the transformation towards a global digital economy and associated servicification of production creates new policy challenges. Efforts to address these challenges are stymied by disagreements between WTO members regarding the priorities for the multilateral trading system. These disagreements reflect differences in views on the extent to which national policies have adverse international effects and the costs and benefits of ne- gotiating additional trade policy rules. The result has been to impede progress on rule-making for both long- standing core policies of concern to many WTO members (e.g., agriculture) as well as new policy areas. Matters have been compounded by dissatisfaction by some Members regarding the functioning of the WTO dispute set- tlement body and transparency mechanisms. While preferential trade agreements are important complementary vehicles for countries to pursue deeper coop- eration on trade policy matters than has been possible in the WTO, such initiatives depend on the strong foundation of basic rules provided by the WTO. Moreover, they only offer partial solutions – many of the emerging policy areas of concern to business and civil society call for multilateral cooperation. Re-vitalizing such coopera- tion does not require major changes in the organization. What is needed is willingness to engage in candid, substantive discussion of perceived problems and possible solutions. The recent Agreement on Trade Facilitation, with its positive approach to addressing development concerns, and the success of Members in incrementally deepening cooperation on some matters under the purview of some WTO agreements – e.g., addressing specific trade concerns arising from proposed new product regulations – show that WTO Members can innovate and agree to common approaches towards trade policies while recogniz- ing differences in social preferences and national circumstances

TVWS policies to enable efficient spectrum sharing

The transition from analogue to the Digital Terrestrial Television (DTV) in Europe is planned to be completed by the end of the year 2012. The DTV spectrum allocation is such that there are a number of TV channels which cannot be used for additional high power broadcast transmitters due to mutual interference and hence are left unused within a given geographical location, i.e. the TV channels are geographically interleaved. The use of geographically interleaved spectrum provides for the so-called TV white spaces (TVWS) an opportunity for deploying new wireless services. The main objective of this paper is to present the spectrum policies that are suitable for TVWS at European level, identified within the COGEU project. The COGEU project aims the efficient exploitation of the geographical interleaved spectrum (TVWS). COGEU is an ICT collaborative project supported by the European Commission within the 7th Framework Programme. Nine partners from seven EU countries representing academia, research institutes and industry are involved in the project. The COGEU project is a composite of technical, business, and regulatory/policy domains, with the objective of taking advantage of the TV digital switchover by developing cognitive radio systems that leverage the favorable propagation characteristics of the UHF broadcast spectrum through the introduction and promotion of real-time secondary spectrum trading and the creation of new spectrum commons regimes. COGEU will also define new methodologies for compliance testing and certification of TVWS equipment to ensure non-interference coexistence with the DVB-T European standard. The innovation brought by COGEU is the combination of cognitive access to TV white spaces with secondary spectrum trading mechanisms.telecommunications,spectrum management,secondary spectrum market,regulation,TV white spaces,cognitive radio

The Path of Internet Law: An Annotated Guide to Legal Landmarks

The evolution of the Internet has forever changed the legal landscape. The Internet is the world’s largest marketplace, copy machine, and instrumentality for committing crimes, torts, and infringing intellectual property. Justice Holmes’s classic essay on the path of the law drew upon six centuries of case reports and statutes. In less than twenty-five years, Internet law has created new legal dilemmas and challenges in accommodating new information technologies. Part I is a brief timeline of Internet case law and statutory developments for Internet-related intellectual property (IP) law. Part II describes some of the ways in which the Internet is redirecting the path of IP in a globalized information-based economy. Our broader point is that every branch of substantive and procedural law is adapting to the digital world. Part III is the functional equivalent of a GPS for locating the latest U.S. and foreign law resources to help lawyers, policymakers, academics and law students lost in cyberspace

Towards a Eurasian economic Union: the challenge of integration and unity

otherwise – without the prior permission of CEPS

Managing the radio spectrum : framework for reform in developing countries

Bringing management of the radio spectrum closer to markets is long overdue. The radio spectrum is a major component of the infrastructure that underpins the information society. Spectrum management, however, has not kept up with major changes in technology, business practice, and economic policy that have taken place worldwide during the last two decades. For many years traditional government administration of the spectrum worked reasonably well, but more recently it has led to growing technical and economic inefficiencies as well as obstacles to technological innovation. Two alternative approaches to spectrum management are being tried in several countries, one driven by the market (tradable spectrum rights) and another driven by technology innovation (spectrum commons). This paper discusses the basic features, advantages and limitations, scope of application, and requirements for implementation of these three approaches. The paper then discusses how these approaches can be made to work under conditions that typically prevail in developing countries, including weak rule of law, limited markets, and constrained fiscal space. Although spectrum reform strategies for individual countries must be developed case by case, several broadly applicable strategic options are outlined. The paper proposes a phased approach to addressing spectrum reform in a country. It ends by discussing aspects of institutional design, managing the transition, and addressing high-level changes such as the transition to digital television, the path to third-generation mobile services, launching of wireless fixed broadband services, and releasing military spectrum. The paper is extensively annotated and referenced.E-Business,Roads&Highways,Telecommunications Infrastructure,Climate Change,ICT Policy and Strategies

Seattle and Beyond: The WTO Millennium Round

This book is a comprehensive guide to the Millennium Round of multilateral trade negotiations which will be launched at the Third WTO Ministerial Meeting in Seattle in early December 1999. It deals in a readable way with the many difficult and controversial issues that will arise during the planned three-year negotiations. These include: the new trade areas like the environment, labour standards, e-commerce and competition policy; the issues that were new in the last Uruguay Round, such as trade in services and intellectual property rights, that are still far from resolved; and trade in agriculture, which is still badly in need of reform after a modest start in the last Round. This book will provide all those interested in international business and domestic policy matters with the comprehensive overview they need to understand the dynamics of the WTO Millennium Round and the complex interaction of the trade and domestic policy issues.World Trade Organization; international trade negotiations

The Globalization of Health and Safety Standards: Delegation of Regulatory Authority in the SPS Agreement of the 1994 Agreement Establishing the World Trade Organization

Buthe examines why states delegated regulatory authority in the Agreement on the Application of Sanitary and Phytosanitary (SPS) Measures, an integral part of the founding treaty of the World Trade Organization (WTO). Buthe argues that, to explain this case of international delegation, principal-agent theory must be complemented by an analysis of cost-benefit calculations of the relevant domestic interest groups. Given these domestic interests, governments decided to institutionalize international cooperation on SPS measures outside of the WTO because they believed that such delegation would minimize the political costs of the loss of policymaking autonomy. Buthe notes, however, that in retrospect it appears that the widespread positive association of international standards with multilateralism and international consensus led many countries to underestimate those autonomy losses. Material and ideational factors thus interacted to shape the definition of national interests and the outcome of international delegation