Nepal's Accession to the World Trade Organization: Case Study of Issues Relevant to Least Developed Countries Depar t ment of Economic & Social Af f air s (original) (raw)
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A significant number of countries - many of which are least-developed countries (LDCs) - are not members of the multilateral trading system (MTS) as yet, and for many the accession process has taken an undesirably long period of time to complete. This lack of participation has important implications for national and global policy making in the field of international trade. However, there is a growing tendency to disregard accession challenges and difficulties facing the weakest members of the international community - the LDCs. The main purposes of this article are to a) discuss the substantive, normative and institutional complexities and requirements surrounding the WTO accession process from the perspective of LDCs, b) assess the possible costs and benefits of joining or not joining the WTO and c) reflect on the challenges facing poor countries in initiating, managing and negotiating their terms of accession in a manner that protects and promotes their developmental and trade int...
Nepali International Trade Before and After the World Trade Organization[#443831]-597382.pdf
2019
Nepal got the membership of the World Trade Organization through the negotiation process in 2004. The objective of Nepal in achieving the membership was to diversify its trade and to liberalize the trade regime. The paper attempts to evaluate whether Nepal achieved its objective as compared to the international trade regime before its accession to the WTO. The paper uses the secondary data retrieved from the World Bank and Nepal Rastra Bank. On the other hand, we have evaluated the trade diversification by using data from Nepal Rasta Bank. It was found that the objective of trade diversification was not found statistically significant, even after the accession to the WTO. Finally, the findings of the study can be translated to the trade policy to serve the national interest of trade balance in the backdrop of rocketing trade deficit of Nepal.
Nepal’s road to the World Trade Organization: A pragmatic overview
Asian Yearbook of International Law, Volume 10 (2001-2002), 2005
Asian Yearbook of International Law comments that the latter's evasiveness "may be regarded as a measure of the difficulties which reform schemes are likely to encounter in this country". 9 Jordan had already heavily commented on the coming of this Agreement in a slightly earlier despatch (No. 167) on 16 August 1904. All his sympathies are with the Japanese. Hayashi had explained everything to the Koreans "in studiously temperate language". In particular, the Korean army would be radically reduced, and this would help assure the Japanese a supply of coolies for military operations. There would be a withdrawal of Korean legations abroad, which had been flattering to the vanity of the Korean Emperor and affording him one of the keenest pleasures in his life. These steps are ostensibly to save money, but are presumably intended to assure Japanese control over the foreign relations of Korea. With an Adviser of their choice and business abroad done through their own legations, "the Japanese will control Corean foreign policy almost as effectively as the British Government did that of the late Transvaal Republic or as the Government of India does in the case of the Amer of Afghanistan". 10 The sequel to this was the actual appointment of the two Advisers. There was an Agreement for a Japanese Financial Adviser on 15 October 1904, without whose consent the Korean Government could take no action. Again, Jordan comments that in drawing up the document, and in particular the above clause, the Japanese "would appear to have followed with some closeness the model set by the British in Egypt". As in Egypt the Adviser sits on the Council of State and can veto any decision. As Lord Milner comments on a similar power in Egypt, it makes the Financial Adviser master of the situation. When he also happens to be a citizen of the country which is in military occupation of the country, i.e., Egypt, then, writes Lord Milner, "there is no need to dwell at tedious length upon the magnitude of his powers". 11 The Diplomatic Adviser, an American, Mr Stevens, under an Agreement of 27 December 1904 received a mandate similar to the Financial Adviser's except that the Japanese Government might terminate the arrangement at any time without consulting Mr Stevens. Article 2 provides, quite simply, that "(i)t will be the duty of Mr Stevens to examine and settle with the utmost faithfulness all questions which arise affecting the relations between the Corean Government and foreign Governments or between the Corean Government and the subjects and citizens of foreign Powers". 12 It is difficult to see what is left of Korea's independence by the end of 1904. A Protectorate has been imposed.
1 Word Trade Organization (WTO) and Its Implications on Nepalese
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Having been a member of WTO Nepal needs to abide by WTO agreements, especially the Agreement on the application of sanitary and phyto-sanitary measures (SPS) and the Agreement on Technical Barriers to Trade (TBT).This has some crucial and challenging implications on Nepalese apiculture. Nepal became deprived of the opportunity to export honey to European Union (EU) countries, as Nepal had to have a residue-monitoring plan, approved by the EU, conforming to the regional norms such as Council Directive 96/23/EC of 29 April 1996. The infrastructures (including laboratory facilities from central to local levels with competent human resources) must be developed with a categorical mandate and authorities for quality control of the products, their standardization, and their marketing system with appropriate facilities for the monitoring, validation and certification system for food safety, hygiene, production and processing standard. It entails that building and strengthening domestic capa...
Accession to the WTO: Dynamics, Considerations and Outcomes for Developing Countries
2016
As the World Trade Organisation (WTO)’s membership reaches universality, one may be curious to ask what explains its attractiveness to countries seeking accession. This paper looks into the dynamics, considerations and outcomes for country accessions that had taken place since WTO’s inception. While existing explanations based on trade dependence, democratization processes and foreign policy alignment could explain the broad trends observed, this exploratory research points to a variable which had been missing in the analysis – competitive considerations. A preliminary investigation using geographical clusters finds in the fifteen former Soviet Union countries an accidental historical experiment which had been useful to examine its effects. Accordingly, case studies on Kyrgyzstan and Ukraine revealed important insights on how and why countries competed amongst each other for earlier accessions. In particular, this paper posits that the asymmetric dependence each country had on their larger neighbours prompted them to seek earlier accession to leverage on its membership for greater bargaining power and, in other cases, to appeal to the goodwill of the wider international community. Faced with the choice to make concessions on its terms of accession or meet even greater asymmetry should their larger neighbours join the WTO before them, developing countries found themselves between a rock and a hard place in deciding when to accede to the WTO.