The 2005 WTO arbitration and the new EU import regime for bananas: a cut too far?

In 2001 an agreement was reached at the WTO for the EU to introducea ‘tariff-only’ regime which ‘would resultin at least maintaining total market access for MFN banana suppliers’.The analysis shows that, contrary to the WTO 2005 ruling, theimport regime proposed by the EU in the second step of the arbitrationwould have satisfied the requirement. The regime introducedon 1 January 2006 is expected to yield in 2007 MFN imports 400,000 tabove the level that would have occurred under the previousregime. In the longer run, MFN countries will see their exportsexpand, while the opposite would have happened had the new regimenot been introduced.     

The End of a Romance? A Note on the Quantitative Impacts of a ‘Brexit’ from the EU

This study suggests UK equivalent variation (EV) gains of €8.9 billion on withdrawal from the EU budget. Factoring in associated trade facilitation costs from the loss of UK access to the single market, annual UK EV losses could be as high as €14.0 billion, with the EU‐28 facing a corresponding loss of €40.4 billion. Interestingly, the extrapolated UK gain arising from withdrawal from the ‘CAP’ component of the EU budget exceeds estimated lower and upper bound trade facilitation costs exclusively on EU agrofood trade. Accordingly, the UK should realistically remain as an EU member, although continue to lobby for reductions in the CAP budget.     

Is the European Union protecting soil? A critical analysis of Community environmental policy and law

Although preserving soil health is essential for sustainability, over the last decade, there has been a significant increase in soil degradation in the European Union (EU) and, based on available information, this trend will not reverse in the long run. While the Union has adopted ambitious policy objectives addressing soil threats, there is not to date an EU soil-specific legislation, but various aspects of soil protection are scattered across many EU policy areas. This paper contributes to evaluating the status of soil protection within the EU environmental legislation, by creating an inventory of the relevant provisions and analyzing their features. It emerges that soil threats are not comprehensively regulated by the EU legislator and soil protection looks like the by-product of several provisions which mainly set preventive, qualitative and non strictly binding measures.     

How would global trade liberalization affect rural and regional incomes in Australia?

Agricultural protection in rich countries, which had depressed Australian farm incomes via its impact on Australia’s terms of trade, has diminished over the past two decades. So too has agricultural export taxation in poor countries, which has had the opposite impact on those terms of trade. Meanwhile, however, import protection for developing country farmers has been steadily growing. To what extent are Australian farmers and rural regions still adversely affected by farm and non‐farm price‐ and trade‐distortive policies abroad? This paper draws on new estimates of the current extent of those domestic and foreign distortions: first, to model their net impact on Australia’s terms of trade (using the World Bank’s Linkage model of the global economy); and second, to model the effects of that terms of trade impact on output and real incomes in rural versus urban and other regions and households within Australia as of 2004 (using Monash’s multi‐regional TERM model of the Australian economy).     

对欧盟农产品自愿性标准的解析

欧盟的农产品标准网络十分庞大而复杂,其中自愿性标准由于具有内容广泛、标准更严格灵活、具有事实上的强制力等特点,配合上欧盟本已十分复杂的农产品立法,为欧盟的农产品市场提供了有力的双重保护网络。与强制性标准比较,自愿性标准给农产品生产商和出口商带来更大的成本负担,并且由于其草根背景,反而更具隐蔽性,加之游离于WTO多边贸易谈判体制的管束,应对自愿性标准相对更加困难。因此欧盟的自愿性标准非常值得引起重视。     

An Analysis of Standards‐based Regulation in the EU Organic Sector, 1991–2007

Against the background of a discussion of recent analyses of capitalist subsumption of agriculture and of neo‐liberalism, the paper uses a ‘liberal governmentality’ framework to trace the development of the EU Regulation on organic agriculture from its adoption in 1991 to its recent repeal and replacement in 2007. The central argument is that regulatory development took the form of a cycle of elaboration, tightening, increasing deviation and finally a ‘return to principles’ in order to reduce deviation. At different stages in this cycle, different groups of ‘stakeholders’, including experts, were influential. Likewise, different forms of expertise became dominant or were sidelined. Meanwhile, ‘capital’ in its different incarnations remained marginal throughout. The paper leaves open the questions of the generalizability of this analysis to regulatory arenas other than the EU, as well as to regulatory objects more central than organic agriculture to capitalist accumulation.     

中俄木质林产品贸易的现状、新态势及对策

首先,分析了2000-2012年中国对俄罗斯木质林产品进口贸易和出口贸易的变动情况;其次,从俄罗斯调整林业产业政策、提高原木出口关税、实施新森林法、加入WTO、扩大森林认证面积等方面分析中俄木质林产品贸易面临的挑战和机遇;最后,提出加强中俄政府合作、拓展木材来源区域、鼓励森林资源合作开发、建立木材合法性联合认定体系的对策建议。