WTO: Strengthening the Neo-Imperialist World Economic Order
“Core capitalist states have used the WTO to strengthen the neo-‐‑imperialist world economic order.” Discuss
Introduction
The World Trade Organization is a multilateral trade organization dealing with the regulation of international trade providing a forum for trade negotiations and dispute settlement. This essay will argue that the WTO has indeed been used as an instrument for core capitalist states to further the neo-‐‑ imperialist world economic order. This will be considered in terms of regulatory, or legislative, conditions and market forces, both of which pose constraints on peripheral countries that core states can use to their advantage. Specific attention, as part of the analysis, will be given to the TRIPs and TRIMs agreements relating to intellectual property and investments, respectively. Neo-‐‑imperialist economics will be interpreted as the expansion of capitalism to increase the economic surplus (stemming from an economic welfare framework) of core capitalist states instead of traditional physical conquest. In terms of the structure of this essay, it will first outline the World Trade Organization, then will proceed to show how the WTO is arguably used as a vehicle to strengthen the neo-‐‑imperialist world economic order, and will finish with some concluding remarks.
Outline of the World Trade Organization
The World Trade Organization is the multilateral trade organization that replaced the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) in 1995 (Narlikar 2005). GATT was an agreement to liberalize world trade by the reduction of protectionist measures including tariff and non-‐‑tariff barriers to trade. The World Trade Organization takes this further through the creation of an institutional body of global governance (Lal Das 1998). The WTO deals with issues pertaining to trade negotiations, management of trade disputes and surveillance of national trade policies, for instance (Hoekman andKostecki 2009). It can be characterized as a network
Introduction
The World Trade Organization is a multilateral trade organization dealing with the regulation of international trade providing a forum for trade negotiations and dispute settlement. This essay will argue that the WTO has indeed been used as an instrument for core capitalist states to further the neo-‐‑ imperialist world economic order. This will be considered in terms of regulatory, or legislative, conditions and market forces, both of which pose constraints on peripheral countries that core states can use to their advantage. Specific attention, as part of the analysis, will be given to the TRIPs and TRIMs agreements relating to intellectual property and investments, respectively. Neo-‐‑imperialist economics will be interpreted as the expansion of capitalism to increase the economic surplus (stemming from an economic welfare framework) of core capitalist states instead of traditional physical conquest. In terms of the structure of this essay, it will first outline the World Trade Organization, then will proceed to show how the WTO is arguably used as a vehicle to strengthen the neo-‐‑imperialist world economic order, and will finish with some concluding remarks.
Outline of the World Trade Organization
The World Trade Organization is the multilateral trade organization that replaced the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) in 1995 (Narlikar 2005). GATT was an agreement to liberalize world trade by the reduction of protectionist measures including tariff and non-‐‑tariff barriers to trade. The World Trade Organization takes this further through the creation of an institutional body of global governance (Lal Das 1998). The WTO deals with issues pertaining to trade negotiations, management of trade disputes and surveillance of national trade policies, for instance (Hoekman andKostecki 2009). It can be characterized as a network
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