Breaking The Seattle Deadlock

After the failure of the WTO Ministerial meeting in Seattle the immediate priority is to restore good faith and confidence in the WTO. This text argues that the developing countries have to be brought much more securely into the trading system, with greater attention being paid to their needs.

The ESRC/GEC programme has made a major contribution in terms of environmental social science research. The chapters in this book provide incisive, detailed and reflective critiques of the development of knowledge over the last ten years and provide powerful and important messages about the challenges presented by the complex relationship between environmental and social change. The book should be essential reading for all researchers and also for all policymakers who are grappling with questions about how to respond to environment/society controversies. Judith Petts, Birmingham University, UK and Member of the Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution Global environmental change will be with us forever. But how it happens in the future, and with what effect on the planet and its peoples depends to a large extent on how the international agreements, national politics and local actions play out. This collection provides the most comprehensive assessment yet of these critical interconnections, and reveals how social scientists are making an invaluable contribution to the creation of more science and just livelihoods in a future world. Tim O Riordan, University of East Anglia, UK An aphrodisiac to the tepid response of positivist social science. People are not merely actors, perpetrators and victims, in an environmental drama. The critical social theorists in this book constructively show us how people are improvising the stage and the script as we update our understanding of nature, what constitutes a good life, and our individual and collective options. Richard B. Norgaard, University of California, Berkeley, US Negotiating Environmental Change is a child of the ESRCs Global Environmental Change Programme, by far the biggest piece of work by social scientists in the United Kingdom during the 1990s. At the beginning of the twenty-first century the balance sheet needs to be drawn up: what do our policies, insights and values owe to the collaborative efforts of social scientists? This book suggests that ideas and approaches that were conceived at a time when the Ozone Hole , Global Warming and Biodiversity Losses were beginning to resonate in academic and policy circles have now entered the British and European psyche. The challenge of forward thinking in the twenty-first century, in which the environment is central to most of the issues that concern social science, is to demonstrate that the environment is not a separate territory . Environmental thinking and practice affects us in various guises: governance and democracy, business and management, risk and everyday consumption: the substance of this book. Negotiating Environmental Change makes clear the contribution that new thinking is making to problems that were not looked upon as environmental a decade ago, but which we now see as being at the forefront of global research and policy agendas. Michael Redclift, King s College London, UK Major advances have been made recently in environmental social science but the context and importance of this research has also changed. Social and natural science studies of the environment have begun to interact more closely with each other and many analysts now agree that an understanding of environmental problems often depends on an understanding of the attitudes and behaviour of people and organisations. Moreover, policy and public debates have also shown that many assumptions that underpin arguments about sustainable development need to be reconsidered and re-framed. This book by leading researchers presents a critical review of debates in environmental social science over the past decade. Three broad areas are covered in ten chapters: the problems of scientific uncertainty and its role in shaping environmental policy and decisions; the development of institutional frameworks for governing natural resources; and the link between economic and technological change and the environment. The book begins with an overview essay exam

Negotiations among members of international institutions often stalemate yet the outcomes vary. Sometimes talks end in impasse and other times in agreement. Several familiar theories are unable to explain the contrast between two prominent outcomes in the World Trade Organization - its 1999 deadlock in Seattle and its 2001 agreement in Doha, Qatar on an agenda for a new round. Extensive original evidence from these cases documents mechanisms that can tip the negotiation process between impasse and agreement in any institution, not only economic ones. The study illustrates benefits for international relations research of building on the relatively neglected tradition of negotiation analysis, a substantial part of which is outside political science.

This book shows how a constructivist account of bargaining sheds new light on the emergence of impasse situations in international trade negotiations. It uncovers the subtle ways in which misperceptions – and the problems of overcoming them – complicate negotiations. It brings to the forefront misperceptions and sticky beliefs that complicate trade talks between the Global South and the Global North. Empirically, the book examines the recent negotiations of Economic Partnership Agreements between the European Union (EU) and West Africa (2002–2014). In doing so, it enriches the study of negotiations of development-oriented trade agreements in the context of a major North-South partnership. By exploring a constructivist perspective on game theory, the author uncovers how the repeated impasse situations followed from the different "games" both sides expected to be playing. The author shows that such misperceptions endured because they reflected deep-seated normative disagreements not only over the effects of neo-liberal trade reforms, but also over how to structure EU – Africa post-colonial trade relations in the 21st century. Comparing and contrasting both sides’ divergent perspectives helps us to see how trade negotiations are never just about economic interests, but also about the (re)negotiation of the values and ideas that structure state interaction. The book draws on a large set of qualitative primary data on EU-West Africa trade negotiations. Negotiating trade in uncertain worlds will be of great interest to students and scholars of international relations, international political economy, international trade, international negotiations, EU external relations, EU-Africa cooperation, economic diplomacy, international relations of the developing world, and North-South cooperation.

The issue of coherence among international organizations has attracted considerable attention, particularly since the birth of the WTO. The Uruguay Round Declaration recognized the role of trade liberalization in achieving greater coherence in global economic policy-making, stating that the WTO shall cooperate with the IMF and the World Bank. This paper explores the origins of the concept of coherence, its evolution after the Uruguay Round, ways in which international organizations can work together, and what coherence should imply from both a general trade policy perspective and a development point of view.

Deadlocks are a feature of everyday life, as well as high politics. This volume focuses on the concept, causes, and consequences of deadlocks in multilateral settings, and analyses the types of strategies that could be used to break them. It commences with a definition of deadlock, hypothesises about its occurrence, and proposes solutions. Each chapter then makes an original contribution to the issue of deadlock – theoretical, methodological, or empirical – and further tests the original concepts and hypotheses, either theoretically or through case-study analysis, developing or altering them accordingly. This is a unique volume which provides an in-depth examination of the problem of deadlock and a more thorough understanding of specific negotiation problems than has ever been done before. It will be directly relevant to students, researchers, teachers, and scholars of negotiation and will also be of interest to practitioners involved in negotiation and diplomacy.

In this work, Amrita Narlikar argues that, contrary to common assumption, modern-day politics displays a surprising paradox: poverty - and the powerlessness with which it is associated - has emerged as a political tool and a formidable weapon in international negotiation. The success of poverty narratives, however, means that their use has not been limited to the neediest. Focusing on behaviours and outcomes in a particularly polarising area of bargaining - international trade - and illustrating wider applications of the argument, Narlikar shows how these narratives have been effectively used. Yet, she also sheds light on how indiscriminate overuse and misuse increasingly run the risk of adverse consequences for the system at large, and devastating repercussions for the weakest members of society. Narlikar advances a theory of agency and empowerment by focusing on the life-cycles of narratives, and concludes by offering policy-relevant insights on how to construct winning and sustainable narratives.

This Handbook combines a review of negotiation research with state-of-the-art commentary on the future of negotiation theory and research. Leading international scholars give insight into both the factors known to shape negotiation and the questions that we need to answer as we strive to deepen our understanding of the negotiation process. This Handbook provides analyses of the negotiation process from four distinct perspectives: negotiators' cognition and emotion, social processes and social inferences, communication processes, and complex negotiations, covering trade, peace, environment, and crisis negotiations. Providing an introduction to key topics in negotiation, written by leading researchers in the field, the book will prove insightful for undergraduate students. It also incorporates an excellent summary of past research as well as highlights new directions negotiation research might take which will be valuable for postgraduate students and academics wishing to expand their knowledge on the subject.

The institutional shortcomings of the World Trade Organization (WTO) became apparent during the Doha Round of Trade negotiations that began in 2001 and which aimed to improve the success of developing countries' trading by lowering trade barriers and adjusting other trade rules. This "development agenda" meant different things to rich and poor countries. In addition, many of the circumstances that supported success in General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) negotiations of 1947 were no longer present after the WTO was founded in 1995. In Reconstructing the World Trade Organization for the 21st Century, Kent Jones examines the difficulties of the WTO in completing multilateral trade negotiations and possible ways to restore its ability to do so. The problem lies in the institutional structure it inherited from the GATT, which was designed for a more limited scope of trade negotiations among a relatively small number of wealthier, industrialized countries. Jones presents an institutional model of the GATT/WTO system, which describes why such an organization exists and how it is supposed to accomplish its goals. Institutional reforms will be necessary to restore the WTO's ability to complete global trade agreements, including a more flexible application of the consensus rule, a common understanding among all members about the limits of domestic policy space that is subject to negotiation, and clearer rules on reciprocity obligations. The popularity of bilateral and regional trade agreements, which have emerged as the alternative to WTO agreements, presents a threat to the WTO's relevance in trade negotiations, but also an opportunity to "multilateralize" new and deeper trade integration in future WTO agreements. Aid for trade may also play an instrumental role in bringing more developing countries into WTO disciplines. Above all, WTO members must develop new ways to find common ground in order to negotiate for mutual gains from trade.