By Biswajit Dhar | Briefing Paper # 25 | June 12, 2019
In June 2018, the Council of the European Union gave the European Commission a mandate “to pursue WTO modernisation in pursuit of the objectives of making the WTO more relevant and adaptive to a changing world, and strengthening the WTO’s effectiveness”. A few months later, a group of 13 countries, which also included the EU, unveiled a process for WTO reform for “developing 21st century trade rules at the WTO”.
Couched under these broad-brush objectives lay the intent to alter…
The second Belt and Road Summit took place in Beijing, China from 25 to 27 April 2019, two years after the first summit was held. Attended by 38 head of states from around the world, United Nation’s Secretary General António Guterres and IMF managing director Christine Lagarde, this year’s summit was bigger than the first.
A joint communique issued at the close of the first summit stated, among other things, that the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) aims to advance…
By Anthea Roberts and Taylor St. John | Guest Blog | May 10, 2019
The UNCITRAL debates over ISDS reforms can serve as a real-world laboratory for observing changes in the national interests and policies of different countries, as well as shifts in their geopolitical weight and alignments. As part of a commitment to transparency, UNCITRAL decided to allow a wide range of observers in the room and to make recordings of the debates available. Such transparency gives non-state actors a chance to analyse these dynamics in real time and to consider not…
By Kavaljit Singh | Policy Brief # 4 | May 2, 2019
It is difficult to make any generalization on the countries’ experiences as significant heterogeneity exists across countries in terms of type, nature, sequencing, and intensity of capital controls. However, some notable trends are visible. For instance, over the last three decades, there has been a marked shift regarding preference over the types of capital controls, from the earlier quantitative restrictions to price-based controls. The growing preference for using price-based mechanisms is largely in tune with a market-based approach to…
Like many other developing countries, India has seen a continuing focus on improving the ‘ease of doing business’ to revive her stagnant manufacturing sector. This can be explained by the neoliberal analytical framework underlying the export-led growth strategy, which has been the preferred model for successive Indian governments since the drastic and comprehensive policy shift in 1991. This saw trade liberalisation being accompanied by liberalisation of FDI policies and a tendency to shun industrial policy by encapsulating it within…
