Trade is one of the first casualties of a global economic crisis. We saw this happen during the Great Depression, after the oil shocks of the 1970s, in the early 1980s, and now the first contraction in global trade since 1982. A reformed and robust trade monitoring system should be among the top priorities for world leaders meeting in London in April and beyond. Many argue that the priority for governments should be to ‘fix’ the crisis first; reforming the governance of the global trade (and financial) system could come later. That would indeed be a mistaken strategy and a lost opportunity. It would be mistaken because better trade monitoring could determine the difference between a coordinated response and a deepening crisis. It would be a lost opportunity for reform because the current crisis sharply exposes the deficiencies in trade governance, which if tolerated any longer would only serve to delegitimise a rule-based trade system.
Though our work and research on matters of global economic governance continues, our posting here does not. For up-to-date information on the latest GEG news and research, please check the main GEG website and Facebook page.
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Tags: developing countries, G20, monitoring, trade, trade policy review, wto
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November 28, 2008 / climate change
The UNFCCC Climate Change Conference in Poznan, Poland from 1-12 December comes right in the middle of climate negotiations launched last year in Bali and scheduled to be completed in Copenhagen in 2009. Developing countries have submitted several proposals. Will Poznan give momentum to discussions on the governance of a post-2012 climate regime?
Tags: arunabha ghosh, Bali Road Map, climate change, Copenhagen, developing countries, enforcement, financing, governance, monitoring, Poznan
