The U.S. Government must broaden the scope of its environmental review of the proposed U.S. - Central America Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA) to include the agreement’s potential transboundary and global environmental impacts. The U.S. should support its Central American trading partners to conduct their own environmental reviews of the CAFTA.
Conventional wisdom holds that integrating labor and social issues into international trade regimes will be one of the very hardest trade policy challenges to resolve. Recent developments present a new strategic opportunity for developing countries to link trade with domestic policies that promote poverty alleviation, more equitable income distribution, and better working conditions.
The whole world is closely paying attention to what the US is doing in Afghanistan, because this is the first experience of a war on terrorism. When the military presence will end is difficult to say. But whatever happens, if we cannot demonstrate to other countries that we are able to finish what we started, than the other countries will think that the US is lacking in diligence and resolve.
The economic and social costs of corruption-induced market distortions are widely recognized. WTO members must make a commitment to fight cross-border corruption while building trust and collaboration between industrial and developing countries to achieve broader WTO institutional reform.
Co-Directors and Senior Associates of Carnegie's China Program, Minxin Pei and Michael Swaine, took part in a panel discussion assessing the just-concluded 16th Party Congress of the Chinese Communist Party. They were joined by David "Mike" Lampton, Professor and Director of China Studies at Johns Hopkins University's School of Advanced International Studies. Tom Carothers, Director of Carnegie's Democracy and Rule of Law Project, served as moderator.
Most observers examine the extent to which the Chinese government fulfills its WTO obligations. Carnegie's Veron Hung offers a different perspective. She examines a key aspect of China's legal system essential to China's implementation of its WTO obligations-independent judicial review.
China's accession to the World Trade Organization thrusts formidable challenges on Chinese leadership to honor promises relating to the country's rule of law developments. The United States and the international community should seize this unprecedented opportunity by directing more resources toward such reform efforts.
Marat Tazabekov, a journalist and publisher of the Kyrgyz news service AKI press, discusses political and economic reform in Kyrgyzstan.