Trade and Security Among the Ruins

The collision of trade and security interests is taking place today in an increasingly fragmented landscape. Governments’ conceptions of their own vital interests are undergoing a rapid transformation as the concept of “national security” expands to encompass issues such as national industrial policy, cybersecurity, and responses to climate change and pandemic disease. At the same time, the system for settling trade disputes is being pulled apart by competing tendencies toward legalism and deformalization. Last year, a landmark decision suggested that international adjudicators could oversee this clash between security and trade, deciding which security interests can override trade rules and which ones cannot. Then the collapse of the WTO Appellate Body threw into doubt the future of a legalized trade regime, suggesting a partial return to a system driven by politics. I argue that this fragmented landscape provides an opportunity to experiment with different ways of resolving the clash between trade and security. After introducing the expansion of state security interests with reference to recent policy developments, I identify three emerging models for reconciling expanded security interests with trade obligations: structured politics, trade legalism, and judicial managerialism. Each of these models brings tradeoffs in terms of oversight and flexibility, and each is associated with an ideal institutional setting. Rather than attempting to vindicate one model for all settings and all purposes, we should embrace plurality, especially at a moment where the relationship between trade and security appears to be undergoing a historic transformation

Human Factors in Information-Age Trade Secret Protection

[Excerpt] Trade secret information security involves a multi-dimensional array of human, legal, and technological factors. I argue that organizational culture, employee policies, and other human factors are fundamental prerequisites to the successful implementation of legal and technological security measures. After a brief introduction to trade secret law for the nonlegal reader, I present an overview of trade secret litigation and an analysis of computer hacking strategy to emphasize the extent to which the legal and technological dimensions of trade secret information security are predicated on human factors. I conclude with a discussion of how human resource policy can engender cultural sensitivity to trade secrets and mitigate the risk of information leakage

Trade in Food Staples: Promoting Price Stability and Food Security through Intra-Regional Trade

Published by Common Market for Eastern and Southern AfricaFood Security, Trade, Africa, Agriculture, Food Security and Poverty, International Relations/Trade, Q18,

Potential Consequences of Intra-Regional Trade in Short-Term Food Security Crises in Southeastern Africa

A report prepared by Michigan State University for the World Bank under contract No. 7144132, Strengthening Food Security in Sub-Saharan Africa through Trade Liberalization and Regional IntegrationAfrica, trade, emergency, Food Security and Poverty, International Relations/Trade, Q13,

An Introduction to Trade and National Security: New Concepts of National Security in a Time of Economic uncertainty

Within the context of enhanced rhetoric about the need for national security measures to protect domestic economic interests, the Duke Journal of Comparative & International Law hosted a Symposium on National Security and Trade Law in which speakers raised questions as to not only what is meant by national security today, but also the significance of invoking national security exceptions in trade. This Introduction provides an overview of issues discussed as well as some reflections on the use of the national security exception in trade during a time when nations are moving away from international cooperation towards unilateralism and facing global crises such as the COVID-19 pandemic. With the World Trade Organization’s recent panel decision, Russia—Measures Concerning Traffic in Transit , the international community received some guidance as to the limited use of this exception under GATT Article XXI and the need for good faith by nations invoking it, but larger questions remained as to its applicability in the context of economic insecurity and in the context of broader global challenges such as cybersecurity and climate change. Furthermore, with the current dysfunction of the Appellate Body of the WTO, there is no central adjudicatory body to address these issues in a systematic fashion, leaving it up to the nations or ad hoc adjudicatory processes to decide, rendering the multilateral trade framework an even more fragmented system. New ways of imagining the role of trade in the context of global and economic crises are needed, as well as more resilient institutional frameworks that can adapt to future forms of insecurity and allow for varied, constructive forms of dialogue among nations

Trade Liberalization, Poverty and Food Security in India

This paper attempts to assess the impact of trade liberalization on growth, poverty, and food security in India with the help of a national level computable general equilibrium (CGE) model. It shows that GDP growth and income poverty reduction that might occur following trade liberalization need not necessarily result in an improvement in the food security / nutritional status of the poor. Evidence from simulations of (partial) trade reforms reflecting a possible Doha-like scenario show that the bottom 30% of the population in both rural and urban areas suffer a decline in calorie and protein intake, in contrast to the rest of the population, even as all households increase their intake of fats. Thus, the outcome on food security / status with regard to individual nutrients depends crucially on the movements in the relative prices of different commodities along with the change in income levels. These results show that trade policy analysis should consider indicators of food security in addition to overall growth and poverty traditionally considered in such studies.Doha negotiations, India trade policy, poverty, food security, CGE model

How to Finance the Security of the International Trade ? A Global Public Good Approach

The aim of this article is to identify the modalities of financing international trade security. Our analysis is more specifically oriented by the issue of financing the developing countries which must make a considerable effort to attain the required level, whereas the developed countries have already largely invested in trade security since the events of 11th September 2001. We first characterise security in the context of a global public good, before studying the financing conditions and the discriminating criteria of the supply of the global public good security. We then presents a critical analysis of the various possible sources and instruments for financing the global public good security and propose different financing scenarios, each one based on a specific allocation of responsibilities among the players in security. We conclude by considering the role of the international institutions as project managers of the financing and implementation of the security of international trade.international, financing, global public goods, international trade, security

Security Trade-offs in Ancilla-Free Quantum Bit Commitment in the Presence of Superselection Rules

Security trade-offs have been established for one-way bit commitment in quant-ph/0106019. We study this trade-off in two superselection settings. We show that for an `abelian' superselection rule (exemplified by particle conservation) the standard trade-off between sealing and binding properties still holds. For the non-abelian case (exemplified by angular momentum conservation) the security trade-off can be more subtle, which we illustrate by showing that if the bit-commitment is forced to be ancilla-free an asymptotically secure quantum bit commitment is possible.Comment: 7 pages Latex; v2 has 8 pages and additional references and clarifications, this paper is to appear in the New Journal of Physic

The Cost of Food Self-Sufficiency and Agricultural Protection in South Korea

As part of its food security policy, South Korea has been pursuing food self-sufficiency using high tariffs and high administrative prices in key agricultural and food markets. Using a dual approach to trade and trade restrictiveness indices, we analyze the impact of these market distortions on welfare and trade volume. Then, we compute optimum distortions, which minimize the welfare cost of observed self-sufficiency and production objectives. We rationalize these optimum distortions to what could be claimed as legitimate protection under a "food security" (FS) box in World Trade Organization negotiations. FS-box protection is sensitive to changes in the definition and the extent of the FS objectives. We show that FS via production targets and reliance on imports would be more palatable to consumers and trade partners, while preserving rents to the farm sector.agricultural distortions, food security, Korea, protection, targeting, WTO negotiations, Food Security and Poverty,

Sit down at the ball game: how trade barriers make the world less food secure

This paper analyses the impacts of trade policy responses to rising world food prices by carrying out a series of stylised experiments in the wheat market using a world trade model, GTAP. The sequence of events that is modelled comprises a negative wheat supply shock and subsequent implementation of an export tax by a major net exporter and a reduction in import tariffs by a small importer. The effects of trade policy responses are contrasted with those of full liberalisation of the wheat market. At the core are the (opposite) effects on producers and consumers, as well as the terms-of-trade and trade tax revenue effects. Food security is shown to depend crucially on changes in prices but also in incomes that are associated with changes in factor returns. The results reveal that major net exporters are generally better off when implementing export taxes for food security purposes. Large exporting countries export price instability causing world food prices to rise further. Net importing countries lose out and have limited leeway to reduce tariffs or subsidise imports. Liberalising wheat trade mitigates rising prices and contributes to food security, but to the detriment of production in Africa and Asia, making them more dependent on and vulnerable to changes in the world market. Concerted action at the WTO forum is required, notably clarifying and sharpening the rules regarding export measures.food security; world food crisis; international grain trade; trade measures; trade liberalisation; CGE modelling