Scientific Coordinator: Petros C. Mavroidis European University Institute

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1 ACADEMY OF GLOBAL GOVERNANCE EXECUTIVE TRAINING SEMINAR SERIES GLOBAL GOVERNANCE PROGRAMME STANDARD-SETTING IN INTERNATIONAL TRADE Scientific Coordinator: Petros C. Mavroidis European University Institute Villa Schifanoia Sala Europa Via Boccaccio, Firenze European University Institute WHAT IS THE ACADEMY OF GLOBAL GOVERNANCE? February 2013 The Academy of Global Governance (AGG) is a unique executive training programme, where theory and real world experience meet. Trainers at the AGG are leading academics, former ministers, heads of international organizations and top executives. AGG trainees young executives, policy makers, diplomats, international organisations and public sector officials, private sector professionals, and junior academics - have diverse backgrounds, operate in a wide range of contexts, and come from the different corners of the world, to share views and debate in the vibrant academic environment of the European University Institute. The AGG s trainees benefit from a network of academics and international top-level officials, and from an extremely stimulating discussion on topical issues relating to governance. INTRODUCTION The Executive Training Seminar focuses on technical barriers to trade (TBT): following a silence of nine years, in 2012, the WTO adjudicated three TBT disputes. A host of world known experts discusses on the political economy of the standardizing process, the impact of standards on international trade, and their legal relevance at the WTO. The aim is to provide a comprehensive discussion of the standardization process (focusing on the political economy of the process before institutions such as the ISO-IEC), and a critical evaluation of the WTO practice in this area. ACADEMIC PROGRAMME Marc Bacchetta WTO: The Economics of Standards in International Trade This session reviews the economics of standards in international trade. Technical regulations, standards, labelling requirements and conformity assessment are now the most frequently encountered non-tariff measures and those considered to be the most problematic by exporters. The session discusses the reasons for using standards, the transparency problems posed by such measures, their impact on trade and welfare, and the challenges they raise for the multilateral trading system.

2 Marc Bacchetta is Counsellor in the Economic Research and Statistics Division of the WTO, which he joined in He holds a Ph.D. in economics from the University of Geneva, where he taught economics for six years. Between 2002 and 2004, he worked on trade related issues at the World Bank, on leave from the WTO. His research focuses on subsidies, non-tariff measures and the labour market effects of trade reforms. He also provides economic expertise to WTO Secretariat lawyers and panellists on international trade disputes. He has been a lead author of the World Trade Report since 2005 and has coordinated the preparation of World Trade Report 2012 on Trade and public policies. Robert Howse New York University: Litigating Standards before the WTO This session examines several recent cases before the WTO dispute settlement system where standards-related issues were considered by WTO adjudicative bodies, in particular under the Technical Barriers to Trade (TBT) Agreement. These issues include: what is the difference between a standard and a technical regulation under the TBT Agreement; what counts as an international standard such that WTO Members are obliged to use it as a basis for their domestic technical regulations; the meaning of non-discrimination obligations in the case of technical regulations and standards; and the role of risk assessment and management. Robert Howse is Professor of International Law at NYU School of Law. He has been a visiting professor at Harvard Law School, Tel Aviv University, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, the University of Paris 1 (Pantheon-Sorbonne), Tsinghua University, and Osgoode Hall Law School in Canada. Since 2000, he has been a member of the faculty of the World Trade Institute. He is a frequent consultant or adviser to government agencies and international organizations such as the OECD, the World Bank, UNCTAD, the Inter-American Development Bank, and the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights. He has acted as a consultant to the investor's counsel in several NAFTA investor-state arbitrations. Howse serves on the editorial advisory boards of the European Journal of International Law and Legal Issues in Economic Integration. Prior to pursuing legal studies, Howse held a variety of posts with the Canadian foreign ministry, including as a member of the Policy Planning Secretariat and a diplomat at the Canadian Embassy in Belgrade. Axel Marx University of Leuven: Private Sustainability Standards in International Trade: Types, Trends and Challenges Private sustainability standards, which are often communicated via labels, are proliferating. Currently there are more than 300 systems operating worldwide. These initiatives aim to enforce a set of social and/or ecological standards in production processes. This session introduces this type of private standards, describe their diversity, identify the major driving forces, discuss their effectiveness and present some of the main challenges with which they are confronted. Axel Marx is a senior research manager of the Leuven Centre for Global Governance Studies, University of Leuven (Belgium). He holds degrees from the Universities of Leuven, Hull and Cambridge. His research interests include non-state market governance and regulation, regulatory cooperation, global governance, political economy and comparative case methods. In 2012 he published a book on Private Standards and Global Governance, jointly with Jan Wouters, Jo Swinnen and Miet Maertens. He has done research for a number of organizations including UNIDO, the European Commission, the European Parliament, the Belgian Government, the Flemish Government and private organizations.

3 Walter Mattli University of Oxford: The Political Economy of International Standards Over the past two decades, governments have delegated extensive regulatory authority to international private-sector organizations. This internationalization and privatization of rule making has been motivated not only by the economic benefits of common rules for global markets, but also by the realization that government regulators often lack the expertise and resources to deal with increasingly complex and urgent regulatory tasks. This session examines who writes the rules in international private organizations, as well as who wins, who loses, and why. The session focuses on three powerful global private regulators: the International Accounting Standards Board, which develops financial reporting rules used by corporations in more than a hundred countries; and the International Organization for Standardization and the International Electrotechnical Commission, which account for 85% of all international product standards. The session aims at providing a framework for understanding global private regulation. Walter Mattli is Professor of international political economy at Oxford University and fellow of St. John's College at Oxford University. He joined Oxford in From 1995 until 2004 he taught at Columbia University in New York, where he was Associate Professor of international political economy and a member of the Institute of War and Peace Studies. He has been a forum fellow as well as a Jean Monnet fellow at the European University Institute, a fellow at the Center for International Studies at Princeton University, a fellow at the Institute for Advanced Studies in Berlin, and Brettschneider Scholar at Cornell University. In 1995, he was awarded the Helen Dwight Reid Award of the American Political Science Association, in 2003 the JP Morgan International Prize in Finance Policy and Economics of the American Academy in Berlin, in 2006 a two-year British Academy research fellowship, and the 2012 Best Book Award of the International Studies Association. Stefan Nonneman European Commission: The Use of Standards in the EU Domestic Market Standards were and still are the key instruments for developing the single market in Europe. Now that the crisis is hitting the economies all over the world, the European economy expects a lot from its standardisation system for boosting the competitiveness of its enterprises. This session presents the European standards development process. The relation between National, European and International standards and their use are explained together with the concept of harmonised standards. At the end of the session the main elements of the new standardisation package and the Regulation 1025/2012 are explained. Stefan Nonneman is working for the European Commission since 1991 taking up different functions. As an Engineer he worked for half of his professional life in energy scientific and applied research and development at the European Commission's Joint Research Centre in Ispra (Italy). During his activities in the Joint Research Centre he obtained a Ph.D. from the Politecnico di Milano in Nuclear engineering. Since 1998 he works for the Enterprise and Industry Directorate General of the Commission in Brussels. He occupied resource management functions in ICT, Finance, Administration and Communication and was frequently supporting activities of the Directorate General in the domain of standardisation. Since the third quarter of 2012, he is appointed as Head of Department responsible for Standardisation for Boosting Competitiveness. Grace Perez-Navarro OECD: The International Tax Rules: Are They Still Fit for Purpose? Domestic rules for international taxation and internationally agreed standards are still grounded in an economic environment characterised by a lower degree of economic integration across borders, rather than today s environment of global taxpayers, characterised by the increasing importance of intellectual property as a value-driver and by constant developments of information and communication technologies. This session focuses on issues around whether rules developed in the past are still fit the purpose in today s business environment, particularly when applied to the

4 increasingly digital economy, or whether there is a need for different solutions, as well as on options to implement reform in a streamlined manner. Grace Perez-Navarro is the Deputy Director of the OECD s Centre for Tax Policy and Administration. Since joining the OECD in 1997, she has held several key positions, including having led the OECD s work on bank secrecy, tax and e-commerce, harmful tax practices, money laundering and tax crimes, the tax aspects of countering bribery of foreign officials, and strengthening all forms of administrative cooperation between tax authorities. Prior to joining the OECD, Ms Perez-Navarro was a special counsel at the IRS Office of the Associate Chief Counsel (International) where she was responsible for coordinating guidance provided to field offices on international tax issues, overseeing litigation of international tax issues, negotiating TIEAs, overseeing the drafting of regulations, rulings and other policy advice and participating in treaty negotiations. Erik N. Wijkström WTO: Standards and the WTO This session aims at providing participants with an overview of the WTO rules on standards with particular emphasis on government regulation in the areas of health and environment. The session addresses, with concrete examples, how the WTO is used as a forum to address trade concerns (and disputes) that arise between countries and that relate to regulation and standards. Participants will be asked to engage in a discussion of what the key current challenges are in this regard. Erik N. Wijkström is Counsellor in the WTO Division on Trade and Environment. Since joining the WTO in 1995, he has worked in several areas of trade policy, including agriculture, sanitary and phytosanitary measures (animal and plant health), trade and environmental policy, trade and health policy. He is currently the Secretary of the WTO Committee on Technical Barriers to Trade (WTO TBT Committee). Robert Wolfe Queen's University: How Transparency Brings Standards to Life In a world economy characterized by complex global value chains, only transparency can avert chaos. Transparency is essential for reducing information asymmetries among governments; and between the state, economic actors, and citizens. The transparency needs of these three groups are not the same: resolving this regulatory trilemma is challenging the institutional evolution of the WTO, and of regional trade agreements. This session describes the three generations of transparency. Using this framework, the session compares the evolution of transparency mechanisms within the WTO, and then between the WTO and two MEAs CITES and the Basel Convention. The framework is then used to consider the progress of the Canada US Regulatory Cooperation Council, EU-US efforts to improve regulatory cooperation, and calls within the TPP negotiations for each participant to have a single regulatory agency with the authority to cut through red tape at the border. Robert Wolfe is Professor at the School of Policy Studies, Queen s University, Canada. He was a Foreign Service officer for many years, serving abroad in Bangladesh ( ) and in the Permanent Delegation of Canada to the OECD in Paris ( ). His Ottawa assignments included the International Economic Relations Division, the Uruguay Round negotiation team, and the G-7 Summit team. After completing a doctorate in Political Studies, he joined Queen s in 1995, where he teaches policy analysis and trade policy in the MPA program. He is also an associate of the International Institute for Sustainable Development, where he works on transparency and accountability in trade governance.

5 Scientific Coordinator Petros C. Mavroidis is Professor of Global and Regional Economic Law at the Department of Law of the European University Institute. He is currently on leave from Columbia Law School, where he is Edwin B. Parker Professor of Law. He was the American Law Institute Chief Reporter on the study Principle of International Trade: the WTO. At the Global Governance Programme he is Coordinator of the research strand on International Economic Law Register on the Academy webpage: The Global Governance Programme (GGP) of the European University Institute (EUI) does not charge a participation fee for the Academy of Global Governance Executive Training Seminars. Accommodation and travel costs, to and from Florence (Italy), and transport within Florence are at the expense of the participant or his/her institution. The GGP will provide transport information and directions to reach the European University Institute. A welcome dinner and lunches included in the programme of the Executive Training Seminar will be organized and offered by the GGP. The Global Governance Programme receives financial support from the European Commission through the European Union budget. For more information: Tommaso Rooms Academy of Global Governance Coordinator European University Institute Villa Schifanoia Tel.: tommaso.rooms@eui.eu The Academy of Global Governance is the training dimension of the Global Governance Programme (GGP), Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies, European University Institute. The GGP is articulated in three main dimensions: research, policy and training. Diverse global governance issues are investigated through the research strands, coordinated by senior scholars, both from the EUI and from other internationally recognised top institutions. The policy dimension is developed throughout the programme and is channeled into the High-Level Policy Seminars, which bring together top politicians, policy-makers and academics to discuss the current challenges of global governance.