The role of WTO committees through the lens of specific trade concerns raised in the TBT committee

Kian Cassehgari Posada, Emmanuelle Ganne and Roberta Piermartini

No ERSD-2020-09, WTO Staff Working Papers from World Trade Organization (WTO), Economic Research and Statistics Division

Abstract: In this paper we provide some evidence of the common claim that STCs improve transparency and monitoring as well as help mitigate trade conflicts. We analyse the content of 555 STCs raised in the TBT committee in the period 1995-2018. We find that: (i) STCs are used to acquire new and higher quality information than that provided merely by notifications; (ii) STCs are used as a monitoring tool, thus making members more accountable; and (iii) STCs facilitate the resolution of trade concerns non-litigiously. By reviewing existing literature, we provide evidence that all this is important because transparency and monitoring reduce trade costs, improve regulatory practices and build and sustain trust. We also indicate the potential for some reforms to improve the efficiency of the system. These include: introducing a reporting system on the outcome of STCs, use of STCs raised in committees to fill the gap of missing notifications, systematic use of the STC mechanism at the stage of draft measures, building-in the dispute settlement system the requirement to raise the matter and discuss it within the relevant committee before filing a formal dispute settlement case.

Keywords: Transparency; WTO reform; Monitoring; Value of WTO; Good Governance; DisputeSettlement; Negotiations (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: F02 F13 F53 F55 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-int
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/217214/1/1698033494.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: The Role of WTO Committees through the Lens of Specific Trade Concerns Raised in the TBT Committee (2022)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:zbw:wtowps:ersd202009

DOI: 10.30875/94f84595-en

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in WTO Staff Working Papers from World Trade Organization (WTO), Economic Research and Statistics Division Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics ().