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Wiggle Rooms: New Issues and North-South Negotiations during the Uruguay Round

Author(s)

Mr Jaswinder Pal Singh , Georgetown University .

Research Project

Developing Countries and the Trade Negotiation Process

> see the project description

Keywords

Developing Countries - Intellectual Property - North-South negotiations

Abstract

Are developing countries marginalized in the formation of global rules governing new issues such as services and intellectual property rights?1 Not if they are savvy negotiators and the developed countries are not unified in their stance, suggests this study. Analysts examine the gains developing countries make in such ‘high-tech’ issue areas (Grieco 1982; Odell 1993; Singh 2002A) to note that the weak do not necessarily suffer the will of the strong. Their success with high-tech negotiations, in fact, bodes well for them in issue areas in which they are strong (for example, agriculture or textiles). Similar arguments are made for weak powers in general for a host of issues, high-tech and otherwise (Wriggins 1971; Yoffie 1983; Odell 1985; Zartman 1987; Zartman and Rubin 2000; Singh 2000A). In contrast to the ominous warnings regarding the inability of developing countries to understand or negotiate these new issues (Jawara and Kwa 2003; Oxfam 2002; Raghavan 2002; Correa 2000), the developing countries may gain no more or no less in these issues than they do in others. This also does not mean that they gain a lot.

File(s)

Wiggle Rooms: New Issues and North-South Negotiations during the Uruguay Round
English | [243 ko] > download