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Begin New Search Topic International Trade and Finance Content Type Working Paper Publishing Institution Centre for International Governance Innovation Publication Year within 10 Years

21. Emerging Countries in Global Financial Standard Setting: Explaining Relative Resilience and Its Implications

Author:
Andrew Walter
Publication Date:
11-2019
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Centre for International Governance Innovation
Abstract:
This special report explores the role of emerging-country members in the Basel process, a key aspect of global financial standard setting. It argues that this process has been significantly more politically resilient than adjacent aspects of global economic governance, in part because major emerging countries have perceived continuing “intra-club” benefits from participation within it. Most important among these are learning benefits for key actors within these countries, including incumbent political leaders. Although some emerging countries perceive growing influence over the international financial standard-setting process, many implicitly accept limited influence in return for learning benefits, which are valuable because of the complexity of contemporary financial systems and the sustained policy challenges it creates for advanced and emerging countries alike. The importance of learning benefits also differentiates the Basel process from other international economic organizations in which agenda control and influence over outcomes are more important for emerging-country governments. This helps to explain the relative resilience of the Basel process in the context of continued influence asymmetries and the wider fragmentation of global economic governance. The report also considers some reforms that could further improve the position of emerging countries in the process and bolster its perceived legitimacy among them.
Topic:
International Trade and Finance, Financial Markets, Global Political Economy, and Emerging States
Political Geography:
Africa, Europe, Asia, South America, Australia, North America, and Global Focus

22. The Rise of Mega-Regionalism: Revealing Canada’s Blind Spots

Author:
Jeremy de Beer
Publication Date:
10-2018
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Centre for International Governance Innovation
Abstract:
The era of global multilateralism in international trade is coming to an end. The World Trade Organization’s (WTO’s) Doha Round, which sought to reduce multilateral trade barriers, has been declared “dead and buried” according to certain scholars. New WTO reform efforts may be rekindled; however, the world has shifted toward international economic regionalism. The WTO defines regional trade agreements as reciprocal preferential trade agreements between two or more partners (whether or not from the same region), of which almost 300 are in force. While these agreements can be called bilateral, free, regional or preferential trade agreements, there is a more important issue than naming.
Topic:
International Trade and Finance, Regional Cooperation, World Trade Organization, and Multilateralism
Political Geography:
United States, Canada, and North America

23. Crisis in the WTO: Restoring the Dispute Settlement Function

Author:
Robert McDougall
Publication Date:
11-2018
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Centre for International Governance Innovation
Abstract:
The impasse in the World Trade Organization (WTO) over the appointment of new members of the Appellate Body is just one symptom of crisis in cooperation on trade. Driven by skepticism about multilateralism and binding dispute settlement, and by a growing strategic and economic rivalry with China, the current US administration has elevated longstanding US concerns about WTO dispute settlement to new heights. The inability of WTO members to exercise their collective authority to interpret the meaning of their WTO commitments has meant that the Appellate Body is effectively not subject to any checks and balances. As other WTO members blocked US efforts to negotiate more member control, the United States increasingly turned to unpopular unilateral mechanisms, culminating in the current block on new appointments as part of its more disruptive trade policy. Assuming the United States will eventually return to rules-based trade, restoring the WTO dispute settlement system to full capacity and enhancing its legitimacy will likely require some changes. This might include improving mechanisms for political oversight, diverting sensitive issues from adjudication, narrowing the scope of adjudication, improving institutional support and providing members more say over certain procedures. Preserving compulsory, impartial and enforceable dispute settlement in the WTO will require an accommodation of different perspectives on how the system should function. Achieving this, in whatever form, will contribute to maintaining and even strengthening multilateral cooperation on trade.
Topic:
International Trade and Finance, World Trade Organization, Global Political Economy, and Multilateralism
Political Geography:
United States, China, Asia, and North America

24. The Content of a WTO Climate Waiver

Author:
James Bacchus
Publication Date:
12-2018
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Centre for International Governance Innovation
Abstract:
Neither the trade regime nor the climate regime has so far displayed any willingness to confront the coming clash between climate ambitions and trade rules. To minimize the economic and political risks of such a collision, the members of the World Trade Organization (WTO) should adopt a WTO climate waiver. To further carbon pricing and to facilitate the necessary green transition in the global economy, the core of a WTO climate waiver should be a waiver from the applicable trade rules for national measures that: discriminate on the basis of carbon and other greenhouse gases used or emitted in making a product; fit the definition of a climate response measure as defined by the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change; and do not discriminate in a manner that constitutes a means of arbitrary or unjustifiable discrimination or a disguised restriction on international trade. A WTO climate waiver should also include support for trade restrictions by carbon markets and climate clubs, trade disciplines on fossil fuel subsidies, and green subsidies that support innovative outcomes rather than particular technologies. Along with a climate waiver, WTO members should also confirm that carbon taxes qualify as border tax adjustments under trade rules. The adoption of a WTO climate waiver is a central and critical part of the overall reimagining of international trade law that is needed to fulfill the stated WTO goal of engaging in trade and other economic endeavours consistently with the objectives of sustainable development.
Topic:
Climate Change, International Trade and Finance, World Trade Organization, and Green Technology
Political Geography:
Global Focus

25. The Road to a Reinvigorated North American Partnership

Publication Date:
01-2016
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Centre for International Governance Innovation
Abstract:
This special report is prepared for the North American Forum (NAF). In 2015, CIGI’s Global Security & Politics Program became the Secretariat for the Canadian leadership within the NAF. CIGI will be undertaking a program of research to support the Canadian contribution to the NAF in cooperation with our American and Mexican partners. In the coming months, CIGI will publish additional reports to support the work of the NAF. Since the 1994 North American Free Trade Agreement, trade, investment and migration flows among Canada, Mexico and the United States have helped turn North America into one of the most dynamic and prosperous trade blocs on the planet. With a new government in Ottawa, it is an ideal time for Canada to make a stronger, deeper relationship with Mexico a crucial plank of a plan to secure a prosperous future for North America. Better relations between Mexico and Canada not only means more opportunities to take advantage of the two countries’ economic and social complementarities, it also gives the two countries the opportunity to closely work together to get the United States on board with an ambitious North American agenda to secure the continent’s economic future.
Topic:
Security, Economics, International Trade and Finance, Politics, and Regional Cooperation
Political Geography:
United States

26. Jurisdiction on the Internet: From Legal Arms Race to Transnational Cooperation

Author:
Bertrand de la Chapelle and Paul Fehlinger
Publication Date:
04-2016
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Centre for International Governance Innovation
Abstract:
The past 20 years have witnessed a profound change in the types of non-resident investors who provide funding to emerging market economies (EMEs) and the financial instruments through which emerging market (EM) corporations borrow from abroad. Until the beginning of the new millennium, private capital flows to EMEs were mainly intermediated by large global banks, and EMEs were subjected to massive volatility in their external payments balances, exchange rates and domestic financial systems. But since the early 2000s the role of bank-intermediated credit has declined, as the base of investors willing to take on exposure to EM corporate debt has become much larger and more diverse. These structural changes have encouraged a vast growth in flows of funds, not only from the mature economies to EMEs as a group, but also among EMEs themselves.
Topic:
Debt, Economics, Emerging Markets, International Trade and Finance, and Financial Crisis
Political Geography:
Global Focus

27. The Future of Canada's Oil Sands in a Decarbonizing Global Economy

Author:
Jeff Rubin
Publication Date:
03-2016
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Centre for International Governance Innovation
Abstract:
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Alberta premier Rachel Notley have both argued that improving Canada’s emissions record will safeguard the future development of the oil sands. The perspective offers little recognition of the current problems facing the country’s largest energy resource, and even less recognition of the problems that the oil sands will encounter as a result of actions taken by other countries to limit their own carbon emissions as pledged recently at the twenty-first session of the Conference of the Parties (COP21) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). As climate change compels deep decarbonization of the global economy, emission restrictions around the world will destroy demand for billions of barrels of oil over the coming decades, severely impairing the economic viability of high-cost producers.
Topic:
Climate Change, Energy Policy, Environment, International Trade and Finance, Oil, United Nations, and Natural Resources
Political Geography:
Canada

28. Canadian Trade Negotiations in an Era of Deep Integration

Author:
Patricia Goff
Publication Date:
02-2016
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Centre for International Governance Innovation
Abstract:
The Canada-European Union Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA) is noteworthy for the expanded role that Canadian provinces and territories played in the negotiation. In this particular instance, these sub-federal actors had a seat at the negotiating table at the request of their European Union partners. However, this paper argues that CETA is exceptional in this regard. Despite the fact that regional trade agreements increasingly contain provisions that relate to areas of provincial and territorial jurisdiction, each trade negotiation is distinct. The CETA experience should not create the expectation that provinces and territories will always participate in the same capacity. Any enhanced role will depend on the federal government’s strategic assessment of any specific trade negotiation.
Topic:
International Trade and Finance, Markets, Political Economy, Treaties and Agreements, and Regulation
Political Geography:
Canada and European Union

29. Assessing the Effects of the Multifibre Arrangement after Its Termination

Author:
John Whalley and Daqing Yao
Publication Date:
03-2016
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Centre for International Governance Innovation
Abstract:
The effects of the termination of the Multifibre Arrangement (MFA) on the trade of clothing and textiles are assessed in this paper, based on world trade date and US trade data. The findings from the data analyzed indicate that the effects of the termination of the MFA on the clothing trade was more significant for clothing than for the textiles trade. With the end of the MFA, the freer trade in these sectors shed light on other sectors that are still protected under trade agreements.
Topic:
International Trade and Finance, Markets, Treaties and Agreements, and Regulation
Political Geography:
Global Focus

30. The Final Few: Completing the Universal Membership of the IMF

Author:
James M. Boughton
Publication Date:
02-2016
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Centre for International Governance Innovation
Abstract:
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has 188 member countries. The United Nations has 193. The difference is not economically or politically trivial. Although none of the members missing from the IMF is a large country, two of the five are potentially important in their regions: Cuba and North Korea. What would it take to complete the process to have both countries included as IMF member countries? What are the obstacles to becoming members, and how can they be overcome? For three years, 1997 to 2000, tentative moves toward membership for North Korea were encouraged by South Korea and were tolerated by most Western powers. The détente did not last, but the episode offers a model for a resumption of progress if conditions improve. Notably, the IMF could provide technical assistance and training, collect economic data and provide information on its membership requirements and obligations. Cuban membership faces additional hurdles because of US laws that were targeted specifically at the government of Fidel Castro. Moreover, to this date, neither country has applied to join the IMF. Because every other country in the world, aside from the very smallest and those not generally recognized as states, has joined the IMF, it is virtually certain that Cuba will apply eventually, as will North Korea, unless that prospect is preempted by reunification of the Korean Peninsula. When they do apply, a concerted political commitment will be needed to overcome the remaining technical obstacles.
Topic:
Economics, International Trade and Finance, Political Economy, United Nations, and International Monetary Fund
Political Geography:
North Korea and Cuba

31. Is Indonesia the Next China?

Author:
Wendy Dobson
Publication Date:
02-2016
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Centre for International Governance Innovation
Abstract:
This paper reviews Indonesia’s economic prospects and what these imply for a closer relationship with Canada. By posing the question “Is Indonesia the next China?,” the author suggests that Indonesia has the considerable economic potential envisaged by foreign investors, but conveys uncertainty as to whether Southeast Asia’s most populous country can make the changes necessary to realize that potential. A review of the economic record and comparison of China’s and Indonesia’s economic structures, endowments and institutions show major differences between the two countries. The paper further questions what it will take to realize Indonesia’s potential, finding the answers to be: human capital development; increased participation in the region’s global value chains; meeting the growing middle-class demand for modern services; raising productivity in agriculture and fishing; and increasing use of the Internet. Failure to make these changes will increase the chances of Indonesia’s growth in per capita incomes slowing and falling into the middle-income trap. Canada’s role will be to monitor closely how Indonesia tackles its five priorities at the same time as it responds to the opportunities to exploit Indonesia’s abundant natural resources, urbanization and its expanding consumer demand for modern services and educational opportunities.
Topic:
Economics, Emerging Markets, Human Welfare, International Trade and Finance, Natural Resources, and Regulation
Political Geography:
China and Indonesia

32. CETA and Financial Services: What to Expect?

Author:
Patrick Leblond
Publication Date:
02-2016
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Centre for International Governance Innovation
Abstract:
The Canada-European Union Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA) is possibly the most ambitious regional free trade agreement that Canada and the European Union have negotiated so far. One of its main components is a chapter that seeks to liberalize trade and investment in financial services between Canada and the European Union, while ensuring that markets and their agents will be properly regulated and protected through prudential regulation. However, this chapter is unlikely to have a significant impact on the financial services sector in Canada and the European Union in the short and medium term. Although some observers fear that CETA might undermine the high quality of financial regulations in Canada or the European Union, this paper’s analysis demonstrates that such concerns are unfounded.
Topic:
International Trade and Finance, Markets, Treaties and Agreements, and Regulation
Political Geography:
Canada and European Union

33. The Impact of Sustainability Codes of Conduct in the Financial Sector

Publication Date:
02-2016
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Centre for International Governance Innovation
Abstract:
This paper analyzes the impact of four major financial sector sustainability codes of conduct, the UN Environmental Programme Finance Initiative, the UN Principles for Responsible Investment, the Equator Principles and the Global Alliance for Banking on Values with regard to their impact on the sustainability of their members. The codes of conduct focus on the integration of environmental, social and governance criteria into financial decision making in lending, investment, asset management and project finance. corporate sustainability voluntary codes of conduct have a positive impact on their members. The effectiveness, however, depends on the quality and content of a code, as well as on implementation and compliance mechanisms.
Topic:
Economics, International Trade and Finance, Markets, United Nations, and Ethics
Political Geography:
Global Focus

34. Capital Flows to Emerging Market Economies: Feast or Famine Forever?

Author:
Malcolm D. Knight
Publication Date:
03-2016
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Centre for International Governance Innovation
Abstract:
The past 20 years have witnessed a profound change in the types of non-resident investors who provide funding to emerging market economies (EMEs) and the nancial instruments through which emerging market (EM) corporations borrow from abroad. Until the beginning of the new millennium, private capital ows to EMEs were mainly intermediated by large global banks, and EMEs were subjected to massive volatility in their external payments balances, exchange rates and domestic nancial systems. But since the early 2000s the role of bank- intermediated credit has declined, as the base of investors willing to take on exposure to EM corporate debt has become much larger and more diverse. These structural changes have encouraged a vast growth in ows of funds, not only from the mature economies to EMEs as a group, but also among EMEs themselves.
Topic:
International Political Economy and International Trade and Finance
Political Geography:
Global Focus

35. The European Union and Investor-State Dispute Settlement: From Investor-State Arbitration to a Permanent Investment Court

Author:
August Reinisch
Publication Date:
03-2016
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Centre for International Governance Innovation
Abstract:
Since the transfer of foreign direct investment powers from the European Union member states to the European Union itself in the 2009 Treaty of Lisbon, the European Commission, the main external trade actor for the European Union, has started to negotiate international investment agreements as well as investment chapters in enlarged free trade agreements (FTAs). Both contain substantive protection standards and enforcement mechanisms in case of disputes, usually both state–state and investor–state arbitration (ISA). With regard to the latter, it was unclear whether the European Commission, the European Union’s experienced World Trade Organization (WTO) litigator, would continue to use the interstate template of trade disputes or venture into ISA. After an initial orientation period, the European Commission rmly endorsed ISA, as demonstrated by the negotiations with Canada on the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA) and with the United States on the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP). Meanwhile, however, public opposition to the TTIP, and to ISA in particular, has formed in unexpected dimensions. It even led the European Commission to partially interrupt its trade negotiations with the United States in order to conduct a public consultation on the investment aspects of the TTIP. Ever since, ISA has remained one of the most controversial parts of the planned trade agreements. Most recently, the European Commission tabled a TTIP proposal to set up a permanent investment court that would replace the system of ad hoc ISA. This paper analyzes in detail the development of the European Union’s position toward the use of ISA as a means for settling investor-state disputes.
Topic:
International Political Economy and International Trade and Finance
Political Geography:
European Union

36. Risks of a Selective Approach to Investor-State Arbitration

Author:
Hugo Perezcano
Publication Date:
04-2016
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Centre for International Governance Innovation
Abstract:
Investor-state arbitration (ISA) has been a controversial topic and a source of criticism and debate for quite some time. Yet, it continues to be a standard feature of modern international investment agreements (IIAs). While opposition to ISA has traditionally come from certain sectors of civil society, there appears to be a growing discomfort now among states as well. Some critics suggest that ISA is unnecessary and should be left out of IIAs altogether. Others argue that it may be needed in IIAs between developed nations that are mostly capital exporters, on the one hand, and developing countries that require foreign capital to promote development, on the other, but that it is unwarranted in IIAs that developed countries enter into among themselves. They reason that developed countries have robust legal frameworks and institutions, including responsive judiciaries, that adequately protect private investment and, therefore, ISA can safely be omitted from such IIAs without any detriment to foreign investors or their investments. This paper addresses some of the aws in the arguments that have been advanced in support of this position, as well as some of its implications, especially the reaction that might be expected from developing countries if developed countries were to back away from ISA in their dealings with other developed nations but continue to demand its inclusion in their agreements with developing countries.
Topic:
International Political Economy and International Trade and Finance
Political Geography:
Global Focus

37. The New Investment Tribunal under Chapter 8 of CETA

Author:
Marc Lalonde
Publication Date:
05-2016
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Centre for International Governance Innovation
Abstract:
I have rarely seen, in my long life, a change as unjustified as the one represented by the new investment tribunal structure now found in the agreed text of the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA) between Canada and the European Union. First of all, it is a poor solution based on a faulty premise. It is the result of an ill-informed but obviously effective campaign by mainly European lobbies[1] and some groups in the European Parliament, which have argued, without proper quantitative or qualitative support, that the present system is biased in favour of foreign investors. If this were the case, how can they explain that, according to the latest statistics from the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID), only 46 percent of all ICSID awards upheld (in part or in full) investors’ claims, while 53 percent of the claims were dismissed for lack of jurisdiction or on the merits, and another one percent were rejected as manifestly without legal merit.[2] Similarly, in its 2014 World Investment Report, the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) came to the conclusion that, out of 274 concluded investment treaty cases in 2013, 43 percent were decided in favour of the state, 31 percent in favour of the investor and 26 percent were settled.[3]
Topic:
International Political Economy and International Trade and Finance
Political Geography:
Global Focus

38. Capital Flows and Capital Account Management in Selected Asian Economies

Author:
Rajeswari Sengupta and Abhuit Sen Gupta
Publication Date:
04-2015
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Centre for International Governance Innovation
Abstract:
Gross capital inflows and outflows to and from emerging market economies have witnessed a significant increase since the early 2000s. This rapid increase in the volume of flows, accompanied by sharp swings in volatility, has amplified the complexity of macroeconomic management in emerging economies. This paper focuses on capital flows in selected emerging Asian economies, analyzing surge and stop episodes as well as changes in the composition of flows across these episodes, then evaluating the policy measures undertaken by these economies in response to the surge and stop of capital flows. This kind of analysis is highly relevant, especially at a time when emerging economies around the world are facing the repercussions of a potential monetary policy normalization in the United States and continuing quantitative easing measures by the European Central Bank, either of which could once again heighten the volatility of cross-border capital flows, thereby posing renewed macroeconomic challenges for major EMEs.
Topic:
Economics, Emerging Markets, International Trade and Finance, and Monetary Policy
Political Geography:
Asia

39. Cross-border Resolution of Financial Firms

Author:
Isabelle Duchane, Kateryna Dzaha, and James Supeene
Publication Date:
07-2015
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Centre for International Governance Innovation
Abstract:
The absence of an effective international regime for cross-border resolution of financial firms led to the disorderly failure of a number of global banks during the global financial crisis, at a high cost to taxpayers and global financial stability. Many jurisdictions still lack sufficient resolution powers and arrangements for cross-border cooperation. This brief proposes that the Financial Stability Board’s Key Attributes of Effective Resolution Regimes for Financial Institutions should be fully implemented within the Group of Twenty (G20) and expanded to include non-G20 states. The FSB should develop a series of model laws on cross-border resolution and endorse a multilateral memorandum of understanding containing reciprocal commitments among the signatories.
Topic:
International Trade and Finance, Financial Crisis, Reform, and G20
Political Geography:
Global Focus

40. Where Does the Biggest Gorilla in the Room Sit? Milk, the United States and International Trade Negotiations

Author:
Bruce Muirhead
Publication Date:
12-2015
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Centre for International Governance Innovation
Abstract:
As Robert Reich, a former labor secretary under Bill Clinton, once asked, with reference to the United States, “Where does the biggest gorilla sit? Anywhere it likes.” Dairy has long been a protected sector in the United States, which has a history of constructing its own reality with respect to freeing up international trade in agricultural products, milk included, and of ignoring or renegotiating commitments when they did not suit the government of the day. This background paper explores the historical evolution of US trade and agricultural policy as seen through its position on the dairy file in international trade regulations.
Topic:
Agriculture, International Trade and Finance, Food, and Food Security
Political Geography:
United States of America