Nick Phipps, Author at UKTPO

A new dawn in public debate?

22 September 2023.L. Alan Winters is Co-Director of the Centre for Inclusive Trade Policy (CITP), Professor of Economics at University of Sussex Business School and Fellow of the UK Trade Policy Observatory. When UK Prime Minister, Rishi Sunak, spoke on climate policy on 20th September and talked the following day to the BBC’s Today programme, he did much more than delay the UK’s policies for achieving net zero. He said he was changing the terms of political debate. He spoke of honesty, pragmatism, transparency, and ‘getting opinions and advice from anybody’. Nothing could be more welcome to anybody who has engaged with UK policy over the last eight years, during which the greatest failing has been the lack of these characteristics at the highest political levels. I would like to celebrate the change in practice immediately, so let me pose a few straightforward questions to Mr Sunak to which a pragmatic government must surely have answers already. Climate Let me start with the climate policy announcements themselves: What are the estimates of how much his new climate policies will increase the UK’s total carbon dioxide emissions between now and 2050? What are the estimates of how much the new measures will reduce [...]

By Nick Phipps|2023-09-22T15:45:33+01:0022 September 2023|Uncategorised|1 Comment

The Effect of SDG-related Provisions in PTAs on SDGs

14 December 2022 Ruby Acquah and Mattia Di Ubaldo are Fellows of the UK Trade Policy Observatory and Research Fellows in Economics at the University of Sussex Business School. This blog was originally published by Trade 4 Sustainable Development. The Role of Non-trade Provisions in PTA’s in Attaining the SDGs. Preferential Trade Agreements (PTAs) are being increasingly used as a tool to pursue various non-trade policy objectives such as the protection of human rights and labour rights, the promotion of environmental sustainability, and combating climate change. […]

By Nick Phipps|2022-12-14T15:55:57+00:0014 December 2022|Uncategorised|0 Comments

Is the golden age of Free Trade Agreements over?

7 December 2022 Emily Lydgate, Reader in Environmental Law at University of Sussex and Deputy Director of the UKTPO [1] Figures from the World Trade Organization suggest that the negotiation of new Free Trade Agreements (FTAs) peaked in 2008, and has since declined.[2] Meanwhile, the Biden Administration has disavowed FTAs. The UK emerged post-Brexit as an enthusiastic advocate, responsible for much of the 2020 outlying peak in WTO FTA notifications. However, even in the UK, the Trade Secretary recently said: ‘I would like us to move away from the DIT being seen as the Department for Free Trade Agreements and back to the Department for International Trade.’ Having created a so-called spaghetti bowl of FTAs, are the wealthy countries that have driven most FTA negotiations[3] finally running out of noodles? […]

By Nick Phipps|2022-12-07T15:08:54+00:007 December 2022|Uncategorised|1 Comment

The EU’s proposed reforms to Trade and Sustainable Development chapters: a big change, or more of the same?

27 October 2022 Camille Vallier is a Fellow of the UK Trade Policy Observatory and Research Fellow in Trade and Sustainable Law at the School of Law, Politics and Sociology, University of Sussex. This blog was originally published by Trade 4 Sustainable Development. After having defended a sustainable development approach to trade based on cooperation and dialogue for the past decade, the European Union (EU) announced in June 2022 its intention to tighten its approach. The recent Communication “The power of trade partnership: together for green and just economic growth” presents the EU’s new strategy, which, among other measures, plans to extend the general state to state dispute settlement mechanism to the TSD chapter and to include the possibility of trade sanctions for non-compliance with certain provisions of the TSD chapter. These new measures have been adopted in response to a long-lasting observation that the current system does not enable a full and satisfying implementation and enforcement of sustainability provisions. […]

By Nick Phipps|2022-10-27T16:38:40+01:0027 October 2022|UK- EU|1 Comment

Is the world experiencing de-globalisation or just a geographical reorganisation of trade?

14 October 2022 Maria Savona is Professor of Economics of Innovation at the Science Policy Research Unit (SPRU) at the University of Sussex Business School and Full Professor at the Department of Finance and Economics at LUISS Business School in Rome. Filippo Bontadini is Assistant Professor in Applied Economics at LUISS and Associate Fellow at SPRU, University of Sussex. Valentina Meliciani is Professor of Applied Economics and Dean of the School of European Political Economy at LUISS. Ariel L. Wirkierman is Lecturer in Economics at Goldsmiths, University of London. After the great recession of 2008-2009, the world economy seemed to enter a phase of de-globalisation or deceleration in globalisation. But, is this really the case? Are we actually just experiencing a reorganisation and regionalization of production and value chains? Are these trends similarly affecting Europe, Asia-Pacific and the Americas, or are there regionally distinctive trends? […]

By Nick Phipps|2022-10-14T16:14:29+01:0014 October 2022|Uncategorised|0 Comments

Should trade policy be used to tackle forced labour?

16 September 2022 Erika Szyszczak is a Fellow of the UK Trade Policy Observatory and Professor Emerita of Law at the University of Sussex. On 23 February 2022, in a Communication on decent work worldwide, the EU announced a new legislative initiative tackling issues of sustainability and working conditions in global trade. [1] On the same day, the European Commission published a proposal for a Directive on corporate sustainability due diligence. […]

By Nick Phipps|2022-09-16T17:57:43+01:0016 September 2022|Uncategorised|1 Comment

New Government, new trade policy?

12 September 2022 Michael Gasiorek is Director of the UK Trade Policy Observatory and Co-Director of the Centre for Inclusive Trade Policy. He is Professor of Economics at the University of Sussex Business School. Once again, the UK has a new Prime Minister, a new cabinet, and thus a new Secretary of State for International Trade. This is the 4th Secretary of State for trade in five years! […]

By Nick Phipps|2022-09-12T12:45:34+01:0012 September 2022|UK - Non EU, UK- EU, Uncategorised|0 Comments

Freeports: why the sudden excitement?

22 August 2022 Peter Holmes is a Fellow of the UK Trade Policy Observatory and Emeritus Reader in Economics at the University of Sussex Business School. Guillermo Larbalestier is Research Assistant in International Trade at the University of Sussex and Fellow of the UKTPO. After time in the shade, Freeports are back in the news. The policy has been embraced and a subject of discourse by both PM candidates, Rishi Sunak and Liz Truss, as part of their “benefits from Brexit” claims and “levelling up” strategies. There has also recently been concern by some commentators that Freeports risk becoming ‘Charter Cities’. […]

By Nick Phipps|2022-08-22T12:43:46+01:0022 August 2022|UK - Non EU, UK- EU, Uncategorised|3 Comments

What has happened to UK-Japan trade one year after signing the CEPA FTA?

8 August 2022 Minako Morita-Jaeger is Policy Research Fellow at the UK Trade Policy Observatory andSenior Research Fellow in International Trade in the Department of Economics, University of Sussex. Guillermo Larbalestier is Research Assistant in International Trade at the University of Sussex and Fellow of the UKTPO. The UK-Japan Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA) came into force in January 2021, as part of the UK’s post-Brexit trading arrangements. CEPA was designed to largely replicate the EU-Japan Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA), to which the UK had been a party. On the face of it, there was little additional economic value to the UK, since CEPA provisions follow EPA provisions so closely, except for a chapter on digital trade. […]

By Nick Phipps|2022-08-08T13:13:29+01:008 August 2022|UK - Non EU, Uncategorised|54 Comments

Is Brexit done?

18 July 2022 Michael Gasiorek is Director of the UK Trade Policy Observatory and Co-Director of the Centre for Inclusive Trade Policy. He is Professor of Economics at the University of Sussex Business School. Boris Johnson was elected on the slogan and promise of ‘Get Brexit Done’. It is perhaps somewhat ironic, then, to see disagreement between the contenders to succeed him as to whether Brexit has actually yet been done. […]

By Nick Phipps|2022-07-18T17:33:32+01:0018 July 2022|UK - Non EU, UK- EU|8 Comments

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