globalization and international relations

CONWAY Kevin

WTO Accession: Tough Love or a Heavy Hand?

> IDRC, 2005-12-13

http://www.idrc.ca/en/ev-91906-201-1 (...)

Thirty-one countries from war-torn Afghanistan to Yemen are queued for membership in the World Trade Organization (WTO). Despite the disarray in the current Doha Round of trade talks and the growing number of regional and bilateral trade agreements being struck outside the WTO arena, few would-be members are ready to give up their place in line. The reasons officials give for staying in the queue range from improved market access for their exports to the positive signal - a seal of approval really - that WTO membership sends to the global trading and investment community.  read

date of on-line publication : 19 December 2005

SHIVA Vandana

Will WTO Shrink or Sink?

> ZNet, Dec 2005

http://www.zmag.org/content/showarti (...)

Here the author describes how economically weaker nations have learnt to exercise their power in WTO through non-cooperation and why they need to reject the “Aid of Trade” package in the draft Hong Kong Ministerial Text, viewing it as a retreat from commitments made at Doha.  read

date of on-line publication : 13 December 2005

AMBROSE Soren, CALIARI Aldo, FOSTER Pam, LEFRANCOIS Fabien

Reality Bites: A rebuttal of the IMF’s "Common criticisms: some responses"

> Halifax Institute, Sep 2003

http://www.halifaxinitiative.org/upd (...)

In 2003, in an effort to combat mounting criticism of its practices, the IMF released a paper entitled Common criticisms: some responses. “Reality Bites” is the counter attack, offering a rebuttal to each of the Fund’s claims in the paper.  read

date of on-line publication : 9 December 2005

AMBROSE Soren

IMF Adds a New Tool to its Bag of Tricks

> 50 Years is Enough, Sep 2005

http://www.50years.org/cms/ejn/story (...)

The G8 meetings in 2005 brought the possibility of multilateral debt cancellation for 18 of the most heavily indebted nations without conditions attached, meaning release from the IMF’s grasp. This article describes how the new Policy Support Instrument (PSI) plans to extend the IMF’s control over national economic policies in these counties, despite no longer being officially indebted to the bank.

• ... and the World Bank - "G8 Debt Relief Could Lead to New Borrowing"

date of on-line publication : 9 December 2005

Seattle 2 Brussels Network

The EU Corporate Trade Agenda

> November 2005, S2B, 40pp

http://www.s2bnetwork.org/EU_corpora (...)

The role and the interests of corporations and their lobby groups in Trade Policy-Making in the European Union, that is: how EU trade policy is being driven by the demands of European businesses for new markets rather than by the needs of developing countries, European citizens or the environment. The article details the extraordinary access of corporate lobby groups and business bodies to the European Commission. Furthermore, it aims to show how the trade policy that emerges from this hidden and unregulated relationship overwhelmingly reflects the demands of European multinational companies in current negotiations on agriculture, trade in services and non-agricultural market access.

• Explore the Brussels lobby paradise, read : “Lobby Planet”, by the Corporate Europe Observatory (CEO)

date of on-line publication : 1 December 2005

HERBKE Marcel

Alien Tort Claims Act: Developments on bill to supress ATCA

> OhmyNews, October 26, 2005

http://www.globalpolicy.org/intljust (...)

The following article (first appeared here) gives an update on the current developments to supress the Alien Tort Claims Act in the US through a new bill.
See also

• A collection of articles on the issues at Global Policy Forum
• The results of Unocal’s landmark settlement for Burmese villagers, made possible by ATCA

date of on-line publication : 30 November 2005

POWER Samantha

To save the world from hell

> September 2005, published in Le Monde Diplomatique

http://other-net.info/index.php?p=11 (...)

This article looks at some of the reasons behind calls for UN reform and considers some of the difficulties the body has recently faced; maintaining a democratic structure, despite its dominance by the P-5 (permanent five member states on the Security Council); increasingly weakened peacekeeping missions; and its cumbersome and bureaucratic management.  read

date of on-line publication : 21 November 2005

dossier

JAIN Devaki

Feminisms and Globalisation: Women 2000

> Symposia Series: NCRW, CUNY and Japan Preparatory Committee Economic Dimensions of Globalisation Panel, June 7th 2000

http://www.womenaction.org/ungass/gl (...)

Guidelines: Challenges to feminist mobilisation of economic globalisation; strategies women have adopted to meet these challenges on local national, regional and international levels; assess impact of privatization policies, the WB, the IMF and WTO upon social programs and services; effects of speculative finance and financial crises; strategies for women’s empowerment and struggles for change.  read

date of on-line publication : 17 November 2005

dossier

Global Policy Forum

UN Peacekeeping Data Tables

http://www.globalpolicy.org/security (...)

This page of the Global Policy Forum’s website displays data on Troop Contributions of States to UN Peacekeeping Operations and on Size of UN Peacekeeping Operations as well as Tables and Charts on UN Peacekeeping Finance. It proposes also analysis, articles, links and bibliography on Peacekeeping, Peacekeeping Reform, US Policy on UN Peacekeeping and Regional Organizations and UN Peacekeeping.  read

date of on-line publication : 31 October 2005

AFRODAD, CIDSE, Eurodad, Initiative d’Halifax, Jubilee USA

Sell IMF gold to cancel the debt: decision time is now

> Report, April 2005, 9 pp., PDF

http://www.eurodad.org/uploadedFiles (...)

Debt owed to the International Monetary Fund (IMF), World Bank and other multilateral institutions has grown rapidly in recent years and these institutions are now the major creditors of the world’s poorest countries. Because there are serious consequences for countries which default on payments to these bodies, multilateral debt can be extremely onerous for countries struggling to provide for even the most basic social and development needs of their citizens.  read

date of on-line publication : 13 October 2005