Tonight’s Powerpoint: freetrade
Here’s the home page for the Doha round of trade negotiations; it contains history of the World Trade Organizations and links to many aspects of what’s going on (or not) there.
Here’s a history of the WTO, which grew out of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trades created just after World War II in conjunction with the creation of the World Bank and IMF: inbr_e
Global Trade Alert is a new Web site that tries to keep up with all trade measures as they happen. It’s not as good as the wire services, but it’s easier to use.
ACADEMIC STUDIES:
This paper argues that free trade in agriculture would be disastrous, particularly for developing nations: agtrade
This paper argues that the WTO’s approach to financial regulation may clash with other efforts to reform the global financial system: g24
An academic study of what’s needed in Doha for agriculture trade reform: library
A report to the WTO on the havoc the financial crisis has played with free trade: wto
A recent Carnegie Foundation report on what’s needed to get Doha going again: WTO_reform
A nice piece by Paul Blustein on how Doha ran off the rails in July 2008: 1205_trade_blustein
NEWS MATERIALS
Here’s a compilation of recent news stories regarding Doha, regional trade pacts and the prospects for free trade in general: tradepacts
Here’s a compilation of recent news about countries slapping trade sanctions on each other: sanctionsarticles
Here’s a compilation of recent news about developing nations and how they’re playing into the Doha prospects: devnations
The U.N.’s “Millenium Development Goals” are to achieve these by the year 2015:
MILLENNIUM DEVELOPMENT GOALS
End Poverty and Hunger
Universal Education
Gender Equality
Child Health
Maternal Health
Combat HIV/AIDS
Environmental Sustainability
Global Partnership to support Developing Nations
Here’s a recent report on how that’s going (not so great): fact_ sheet_where_are_the_gaps
Here’s the press release that accompanied a longer report: Press_release_MDG_Gap_2009
I have the latest U.N. handbook of development statistics, but it’s too large for the Web site. If you want a copy, please e-mail me, and I’ll send it to you.
I also have the U.N.’s latest report on globalization and development. Ask for it, and I’ll send it to you. Both these reports are Acrobat files.
What’s a developing country? Which countries are real basket cases? Here is an Excel file containing the World Bank’s economic classifications of countries: CLASS