The relationship between trade policy and climate policy needs to improve in the future, in particular with a view towards implementing the Paris Agreement. With the aim of making trade policy supportive of climate action, this working paper discusses the relationship between the regimes established by the World Trade Organization …
While P V Narasimha Rao was meeting Bill Clinton to discuss "mutual" problems like intellectual property rights, the US had already reneged on the Biodiversity Convention by interpreting that GATT rules override matters related to technology transfer and intellectual property rights in the Convention. Thus, the US has not only …
INTERNATIONAL market intelligence is in. The Punjab Agricultural University in Ludhiana formed an International Marketing Intelligence Committee in April this year to optimally exploit export opportunities in the post-GATT era. The committee is divided into 2 groups: the first, a one-time study group chaired by Karam Singh, head of the …
MORE than a month after the signing of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), ignorance and uncertainty about its implications continue to prevail among Indian agriculturists. The principal issues for farmers is whether they can retain and sell seeds and whether they will be able to compete in …
Dharwad (Karnataka) Opposition to GATT in Karnataka is spearheaded by the Karnataka Rajya Raitha Sangha (KRSS), which has gained strength over the past 2 years and forced the ruling Congress government to accord comparatively greater seriousness in projecting its viewpoint of GATT. The thrust of the official programme -- to …
WHATEVER the outcome of the byelection in Rajasthan's Rajakheda assembly constituency on May 26, it will be remembered for one thing: GATT as a campaign issue. Previously, elections in Rajakheda were always contested along caste lines: Brahmins versus the rest. But now, Samajwadi Party candidate Mohan Prakash, a former legislator …
On the government's information campaign: We have to deal with a great deal of disinformation about GATT. We have launched a counter-campaign to present the right picture. We are organising seminars, workshops and taking up public contact programmes and distribution of literature on how Indian farmers will benefit from GATT. …
ALTHOUGH commerce minister Pranab Mukherjee maintains that India has good chances of cornering a sizeable chunk of the projected increase in world agricultural trade (up to 7 per cent, according to International Monetary Fund estimates) in the post-GATT era, there are overwhelming doubts about such claims. The increase in trade …
Gatt on TRIPS • Provides for protection of plant varieties. • Microorganism and microbiological processes are patentable. • Countries can either provide for patenting of plant varieties or develop an effective sui generis system of protection or a combination of both. Pro-GATT position • This will not affect farmers' rights …
ANTI-GATT ALL the major opposition parties, with the help of mass-based organisations, are planning either demonstrations, rallies, civil disobedience movements or study camps for farmers throughout the country to protest GATT. In the Rajya Sabha, where the Congress is in a minority, opposition parties are getting together to prevent GATT-related …
LITTLE attention has been paid to the effects of current and emerging trade arrangements, vis-a-vis GATT, on Indian food security issues. A number of related issues have been given more serious pondering: negative impact on the economic status of food producers and processors; minus marks for the state of the …
LANGUAGE, in any campaign, is as potent a force as logic. In Patent Pending: Indian Farmers Fight to Retain Seed Freedom, a beautifully and cleverly made campaign film by Meera Dewan and Vandana Shiva, the language is so loaded as to render impossible any rational debate on the subject. Even …
Day before the gigantic Lef-organised rally on April 5, and the only slightly less large demo by the Right with BJP to protest the Indian government's endorsement of the Dunkel draft text for GATT, the Union cabinet decided to use Doordarshan for some intensive propagandising in favour of Dunkel. Viewers …
TRADE, environment and labour standards hold centrestage as the countdown begins for the formal signing ceremony of the Uruguay Round of GATT at Marrakesh, Morocco, on April 15. Under pressure from the industrialised nations, the 118-member nations are planning to take the first step towards a "green GATT" by setting …
OVERTURNING age-old fears, free trade is now being seen as the market miracle that will bail out the earth from the environmental mess it finds itself in; free trade is expected to bring about the most efficient allocation of natural resources. Environmental concerns -- so far stubbornly kept out of …
WITH the end of the Uruguay Round of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), the issue of trade and environment is heating up. In mid February, the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) invited senior environment ministers, government officer sand heads of the United Nations Conference on and Trade …
The Karnataka Rajya Raitha Sangha (KRRS) -- a farmer's organisation -- has taken the lead in proposing an alternative to the Union government's draft bill on protection of plant varieties, which is based on the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) negotiations. In February, representatives of six groups, including …
Those who took upon themselves the task of opposing the Dunkel proposals for the Uruguay round of talks have done a remarkable job. A motley band of people with little in common -- except their professed dislike for the Dunkel proposals -- have managed to carry the anti-Dunkel stand even …
"WHAT DID we achieve in 1993?" The simple answer is: "Not much!" If that is an unsatisfying note to begin a new year on, we could rephrase the question: "What did we lose in 1993?" The answer, once again, is: "Not much!" Wordplay and sarcasm aside, 1993 was an extremely …
ON DECEMBER16, 1993, South Korean Prime Minister Hwang In-Sung resigned, taking responsibility for the opening up the country's rice market to imports. Soon, the entire cabinet followed suit. The impact of the Uruguay round of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) was not restricted to South Korea. Farmers …
THE AGREEMENT at the conclusion of the Uruguay round of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) has come as a victory of sorts for French farmers, even if it does not spare them the current low agricultural prices. The agreement, signed on December 15 in Geneva after seven …
