World Trade Forum Kursaal, Bern, Switzerland September 2015 PROGRAMME. 20 Years of the World Trade Organization

Transcription

1 World Trade Forum Kursaal, Bern, Switzerland September 2015 PROGRAMME 20 Years of the World Trade Organization

2 Day 1: Friday, 25 September :30 12:00 Press briefing over coffee, one-to-one press interviews with spokespeople from participating institutes and high-level speakers 12:00 13:00 Registration for delegates 13:00 13:15 Welcome by Prof. Martin Täuber Rector of the University of Bern 13:15 14:45 Plenary session I with roundtable Expectations and Early Developments Chair: Douglas A. Irwin (Dartmouth College) 14:45 15:15 Coffee Victor do Prado (WTO) Debra Steger (University of Ottawa) Judith Goldstein (Stanford University) Frieder Rössler (formerly ACWL and GATT/WTO) 15:15 16:45 Parallel Session A: Book Project Parallel Session B: Non-Tariff Measures and New Trade Issues 16:45 17:15 Coffee 17:15 18:45 Plenary session II with roundtable Operational Issues (Performance over 20 Years) Chair: Chad P. Bown (World Bank) Eveline Herfkens (SAIS, Johns Hopkins University) Patrick Low (Fung Global Institute) Gabriel André Duque Mildenberg (WTO Ambassador, Columbia) Arancha González (ITC) tbc 20:00 Dinner (Kornhauskeller) NOTE: Scheduling of speakers remains to be confirmed.

3 Day 2: Saturday, 26 September :00 10:30 Parallel session C: Book Project Parallel session D: Book Project Parallel session E: PTAs, Megaregionals and the WTO 10:30 11:00 Coffee 11:00 12:30 Plenary session III with roundtable Looking Ahead Challenges and Opportunities Chair: Bernard Hoekman (European University Institute) 12:30 13:45 Lunch Joakim Reiter (Deputy Secretary-General, UNCTAD) Ricardo Cortés-Monroy (Nestlé) Remigi Winzap (WTO Ambassador, Switzerland) Lu Xiankun (University of International Business and Economics, China) Jonathan Fried (WTO Ambassador, Canada) 13:45 15:15 Parallel session F: Book Project Parallel session G: The Dispute Settlement Understanding: The Jewel in the Crown? 15:30 16:00 Closing Remarks followed by Alumni Reception Conference Venue: Kursaal, Kornhausstrasse 3, Bern NOTE: Scheduling of speakers remains to be confirmed. The World Trade Forum 2015 is organized by the World Trade Institute (University of Bern), the European University Institute (Florence), the Graduate Institute (Geneva) and the Centre for Economic Policy Research (London).

4 Parallel Session Descriptions Parallel Session A: Book Project The World Trade Organization: Past 1. Thinking about Performance in the Context of the World Trade Organization: An Interdisciplinary Perspective (Manfred Elsig, World Trade Institute; Bernard Hoekman, European University Institute; Joost Pauwelyn, Graduate Institute) 2. The GATT s Starting Point: Tariff Levels circa 1947 (Chad P. Bown, World Bank; Douglas A. Irwin, Dartmouth College) 3. Rules and Norms as Constraint: The Origins of the Trade Regime and Implications for Future Trade Liberalization (Judith Goldstein, Stanford University; Robert Gulotty, Stanford University) Parallel Session B: Non-Tariff Measures (NTMs) and New Trade Issues Chair: Joseph Francois, World Trade Institute In the two decades since the creation of the WTO, there have been fundamental changes in the way production is organized, both in goods and services. Large, multinational firms organize production networks that span borders, while firms design products for production and final sale in multiple locations. This exposes firms to multiple regulatory regimes, while heightening the importance of border clearance. As a result, differences in rules, regulations, and standards that were pure domestic issues decades ago are now important features in the landscape of factors driving trade, investment, and productivity in an increasingly globalized economy. This session is devoted to the challenges these new non-tariff issues pose for the rules-based system that governs the global economy. 1. Quantifying Barriers to Trade in Goods (Koen Berden, ECORYS) 2. Quantifying Barriers to Trade in Services (Aaditya Mattoo, World Bank, tbc) 3. WTO Implication of Private Standards and Impacts of TTIP/TPP Megas Regulatory Coherence on the BRICS Economies (Vera Thorstensen and Lucas Ferraz, FGV Brazil, Center on Global Trade and Investment) 10 minutes per presentation, rest for discussion

5 Parallel Session C: Book Project The World Trade Organization: Past 1. After 20 Years, is the WTO an Organization? (Debra Steger, University of Ottawa) 2. About the Melting of Icebergs. Discovering Political and Economic Determinants of Dispute Initiation and Resolution in the WTO (Dirk de Bièvre, University of Antwerp; Arlo Poletti, LUISS Università Guido Carli; Aydin Yildirim; University of Antwerp) 3. Twenty Years of Third Party Participation at the WTO: What Have We Learned? (Krzysztof J. Pelc, McGill University, Montreal) Parallel Session D: Book Project The World Trade Organization: Past 1. Mind the Gap: Defining the Relationship between Accession Protocols and the WTO Agreement (Julia Ya Qin, Wayne State University, Detroit) 2. Why Does the WTO Still Matter for the Private Sector? (Lu Xiankun, University of International Business and Economics, China) 3. Applying WTO Disciplines through National Institutions: The US Steel Safeguard Cases of (J. Michael Finger, formerly World Bank, Washington DC) Parallel Session E: PTAs, Megaregionals and the WTO Chair: Andreas Dür, University of Salzburg Throughout its existence, the WTO has been confronted with a proliferation of preferential trade agreements (PTAs). The negotiations for a Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) and a Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) again put the spotlight on the relationship between PTAs and the WTO. Do PTAs undermine the multilateral trading system? Are PTAs a cause or a consequence of the WTO s troubles, which manifest themselves in a deadlocked Doha Development Agenda? 1. Key Trends in Preferential Trade Agreements (Andreas Dür, University of Salzburg) 2. TTIP and Third Countries (Charlotte Sieber, World Trade Institute) 3. TTIP and the WTO: A View from Business (Pascal Kerneis, European Services Forum) 4. TTIP and the Multilateral Trading System (Alan Winters, University of Sussex) 10 minutes per presentation, rest for discussion

6 Parallel Session F: Book Project The World Trade Organization: Past 1. You Are Twenty Now. The Evolution of the Case-law of the WTO Dispute Settlement. Subsidies as Case-Study. (Luca Rubini, University of Birmingham) 2. The Presence of the WTO within PTAs (Todd Allee, University of Maryland; Manfred Elsig, World Trade Institute) 3. The WTO and Regional Trading Agreements: Is it all over for Multilateralism? (Alan Winters, University of Sussex) Parallel Session G: The DSU: The Jewel in the Crown? Chair: Michael Hahn, University of Bern Whereas the WTO s role as forum for negotiations is not an unqualified success, the Dispute Settlement Mechanism seems to go from strength to strength. It is such a success that the numbers have started to become difficult to manage. So there would seem reason to celebrate the wisdom of both the drafters and the users of the system. But challenges remain. How should the system be adapted to the new challenges of the 21 st century? The panel brings together prominent actors in the dispute settlement arena as well as academics to take a look back, a long hard look at what we have now and a look into the future. H.E. Ronald Saborío, Ambassador of Costa Rica to the WTO, Chairman of the WTO Dispute Settlement Body Professor Peter Van den Bossche (Maastricht University), Member of the Appellate Body Valerie Hughes, Director of Legal Affairs of WTO Secretariat Professor Hélène Ruiz Fabri (Max Planck Institute Luxembourg) Philippe de Baere (van Bael & Bellis, Brussels Geneva) Niall Meagher (Executive Director, Advisory Centre on WTO Law, Geneva) 10 minutes per presentation, rest for discussion