The political economy of WTO accession: the unfinished business of universal membership

Abstract

While the WTO now represents most of the world's population, GDP, and trade, the accession process since its founding has been lengthy, and it is getting longer. Compared to its predecessor, the GATT, the WTO applies a much more detailed and legalistic approach to accession, due to its broader scope of policy coverage and the enforcement powers of the Dispute Settlement Understanding. In WTO accession cases, WTO incumbent members have a superior bargaining position. The present study provides evidence that the elapsed time from WTO application to accession has increased with the number of completed accessions, suggesting a process of learning by WTO members to bargain for more demanding concessions from applicants. Regarding the terms of accession, the number of rules commitments has increased, and the level of bound tariffs has fallen, as the number of completed accessions has increased. In view of the difficult cases remaining in order to complete universal WTO membership, the author proposes more flexibility in accession requirements, along the lines of the GATT tradition. *

Trade, institutions, and the timing of GATT/WTO accession in post-colonial states

“…Once the GATT Secretariat certified this declaration, the post-colonial state acceded to the GATT under the "the terms and conditions previously accepted by the metropolitan government." 6 Thus, the route to accession under Article XXVI:5(c) was "a simple and straightforward process under which 64 newly independent countries from Africa, the Caribbean, and Asian-Pacific areas became GATT members" between 1947and 1994(Jones 2009b. This straightforward accession path for postcolonial states differed markedly from that required of other applicant countries, which had to enter into negotiations over the terms of their accession under GATT Article XXXIII-a process which generally required the applicant state to make substantial trade liberalization concessions prior to becoming a full contracting party.…”

Theoretical concepts of trade policy development and analysis: Evolution and modern challenges in the context of the international trading system transformation

“…He also identifies positive and negative aspects of WTO participation for member countries and the organization itself. His research aims to assess the impact of liberalization, taking into account the fundamental principle of the WTO -provision of reciprocal and non-discriminatory market access [Jones, 2009]. Contrary to a popular belief, Jennifer L. Tobin and Marc L. Busch, using a gravity model, suggest that the Generalyzed System of Preferences, as a form of assistance in trade growth in developing countries, provides the latter with significantly fewer benefits if they are not members of GATT/WTO, but enjoy the system without joining the organization.…”

International Coercion and the Diffusion of Regulatory Data Protection

“…In order to test for any effect of WTO membership on a country's likelihood of protecting regulatory data, I include a dichotomous, time‐varying variable indicating a country's membership status in a given year (World Trade Organization, ). Of course, correlations between this variable and the dependent variable could implicate mechanisms of diffusion other than the influence of an international organization; for example, the WTO's accession process allows powerful incumbents like the United States the opportunity to extract costly concessions from prospective members (Jones, ). However, it also empowers weak member states by allowing them to block the accession of prospective members, for example, Georgia's opposition to Russia's accession (Schneider and Urpelainen, ).…”