Bilateralism and Unilateralism: The Future of International Trade Relations?

Od redakcji – polska wersja publikacji dostępna jest w wydaniu nr 2/2018 Monitora Prawa Celnego i Podatkowego   International trade policy is going through a major transformation. Essentially, the World Trade System is based on the outcomes of the Uruguay Round in 1995. There were high expectations for the subsequent round of negotiations, the Doha Round, which was initiated in 2001, but there were disappointingly few outcomes from those negotiations. They became stagnated, so that even today a successful conclusion has yet to be realised[1]. And furthermore, the outcomes of the WTO ministerial meetings in Bali and Nairobi in 2014 and 2015 demonstrated that any steps towards a more comprehensive liberalisation within the framework of the World Trade System are difficult to achieve. Nonetheless, in spite of the stagnation in the Doha negotiations, international trade relations have continued to develop in the intervening 15 years. [1]See, e.g.: Interview with the director of the Swiss State Secretariat for Economic Affairs (SECO), Gabrielle Ineichen-Fleisch, Neue Zürcher Zeitung, 1.4.2017, p. 34 and Bernhard Hoekman (Ed.), The Global Trade Slowdown: A New Normal? Centre for Economic Policy Research (CEPR), VoxEU.org eBook, CEPR Press 2015. [...]