Trade Diplomacy

Labour Rights as Human Rights: Evaluating the policy coherence of USA, EU and Australia through trade agreements and their participation in the Universal Periodic Review

Raymond Saner, Angad Keith & Lichia Yiu

The purpose of this study is to find policy coherence, or lack thereof, in the labour provisions contained in the Free Trade Agreements (FTAs) of the United States of America, the European Union and Australia when compared to their interactions in the Universal Periodic Review (UPR) Sessions with their trade partners and to the official trio of UPR documents made available during these sessions. Over the past decade these countries have entered into various free trade agreements with developing and developed countries alike. However, it is their trade agreements with developing countries that are of particular interest.

Could plurilateral agreements provide a way forward out of the current impasse of the WTO/Doha Round?

This Diplomacy Dialogue Debate addresses the following question:
Could plurilateral agreements provide a way forward out of the current impasse of the WTO/Doha Round?

The inputs for this Policy Debate are based on exchanges amongst trade experts namely: Mr. Grant Aldonas, Senior Advisor (Non-resident), Centre for Strategic and International Studies; Mrs. Jane Drake-Brockman, Global Services Network; Mr. Guy de Jonquières, Senior Fellow at ECIPE and Ambassador B. K. Zutshi, Ambassador of India to the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (1989 to 1994)

Doha stalemate: Implications and ways forward”, CSEND Policy Brief, Geneva, August 2011

The Doha Development Agenda (DDA) launched in 2001was supposed to achieve further trade liberalisation while at the same time taking into account the needs of developing countries. Ten years have passed since its inception. No end of the Round is in sight and the possibility of a full failure looms in the background. This policy note addresses the following questions: Why does the DDA seem to evolve towards failure? What could be done to rescue the Doha Round?

The 2010 World Investment Report

The 2010 World Investment Report " focuses focuses on trends in foreign direct investment (FDI) worldwide, at the regional and country levels and emerging measures to improve its contribution to development. The year's report, titled "Investing in a Low-Carbon Economy", discusses the opportunities and threats for developing countries in the transition to a low-carbon economy, and considers how foreign investment and transnational corporations can be leveraged in supporting this process.