Increasing the Openness of the Trade Policy Process: Challenges and Implications

Trade policy – once a subset of foreign policy far removed from domestic concern, focused squarely on border issues and subject to the rules of international diplomacy – is now a central concern on the public policy agenda as trade issues have become increasingly entwined with traditionally domestic policy issues. Consequently, demands have been made for more openness in trade policy formation and, in response, many governments have undertaken openness initiatives. Despite these developments there has been only a little research into the increased openness of trade policy processes in general and no research aimed at developing a consistent framework for categorizing various openness initiatives and permitting a meaningful comparison of initiatives between trading partners. In this paper, the general issue of increasing the openness of trade policy is examined, an openness framework is proposed and the implications for trade policy are assessed.openness, openness framework, trade policy, transparency, International Relations/Trade,

The WTO and the Cartagena Protocol: International Policy Coordination or Conflict?

International policy coordination is a challenging exercise requiring policy rapprochement among sovereign nations that often have very different political economy situations. Successful efforts may even result in the creation of multilateral paradigms such as trade agreements or multilateral environmental agreements (MEAs). Typically, there is overlap between these independent paradigms; sometimes in the nexus there is policy coordination and other times there is conflict. An understanding of the factors that account for coordination and conflict is crucial in ensuring that any benefits from policy coordination that may be achieved in one paradigm are not eroded through conflicts with another paradigm. This article presents a case study of the implications of overlapping multilateral paradigms – the World Trade Organization and an MEA known as the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety – for international market access of biotechnology-based agri-food products.Agricultural and Food Policy, International Relations/Trade,

The SPS Agreement and Agri-food Trade Disputes: The Final Frontier

Without modification, the World Trade OrganizationÂ’s Agreement on Sanitary and Phytosanitary Measures (SPS Agreement) will become the battleground for many complex agricultural trade disputes. There are two interrelated reasons for this. The first reason is that the agreement confers on members considerable unilateral power to implement unchallengeable market access barriers to agri-food imports, provided those members have a legitimate justification to do so. The second reason is that much ambiguity continues to exist regarding what properly constitutes a legitimate justification. Therefore, modifications to the SPS Agreement are required to fully characterize a legitimate justification, thus ensuring that SPS-related market access barriers will be wielded in a manner consistent with ensuring public health while preventing unnecessary trade distortion.agricultural trade policy, domestic regulatory policies, sanitary and phytosanitary (SPS) measures, World Trade Organization, International Relations/Trade,

Structure and phase boundaries of compressed liquid hydrogen

We have mapped the molecular-atomic transition in liquid hydrogen using first principles molecular dynamics. We predict that a molecular phase with short-range orientational order exists at pressures above 100 GPa. The presence of this ordering and the structure emerging near the dissociation transition provide an explanation for the sharpness of the molecular-atomic crossover and the concurrent pressure drop at high pressures. Our findings have non-trivial implications for simulations of hydrogen; previous equation of state data for the molecular liquid may require revision. Arguments for the possibility of a $1^{st}$ order liquid-liquid transition are discussed

THE VALUE OF CLEAN DAIRY AIR: ACCOUNTING FOR ENDOGENEITY AND SPATIALLY CORRELATED ERRORS IN A HEDONIC ANALYSES OF THE IMPACT OF ANIMAL OPERATIONS ON LOCAL PROPERTY VALUES

We study the effect of livestock operations on property values using a hedonic analysis in five Ohio townships. Unlike previous studies, we account for endogenous livestock location variables and spatially correlated errors. Results suggest failure to correct for these problems results in biased estimates of livestock impacts on property values.Land Economics/Use,