China and the WTO

10 December 2021 Michael Gasiorek is Professor of Economics and Director of the UK Trade Policy Observatory at the University of Sussex and L. Alan Winters is Professor of Economics and Founding Director of UKTPO China acceded to the World Trade Organisation twenty years ago. Yet despite being a member of the international trading club for two decades, China’s ‘role’ in the trading system continues to generate controversy  across a range of areas such as the alleged support to state-owned enterprises boosting their international competitiveness, restrictions on foreign direct investment in China and the ineffective intellectual property protection in China. In addition, and sometimes conflated with trade, there are technology-related security concerns and human rights abuses, notably with regard to the Uyghurs. The Covid-19 pandemic has also raised worries in some quarters about the vulnerability of supply chains, including over-reliance on particular suppliers such as China in critical sectors. […]

By |2021-12-11T08:15:46+00:0011 December 2021|UK - Non EU|0 Comments

Enhance governance of trade policy to ensure ‘Green Brexit’

2 May 2018 Dr Emily Lydgate is a lecturer in Law at the University of Sussex and a fellow of the UK Trade Policy Observatory and Dr Rob Amos is a Research Fellow in Law, Sussex Sustainability Research Programme, University of Sussex. Rob is conducting a project on Sustainable Trade Post-Brexit in collaboration with the UK Trade Policy Observatory. If the UK is going to live up to its commitments to ‘Green Brexit’, climate change mitigation and the UN Sustainable Development Goals, the UK should develop its own Sustainability Impact Assessments framework to minimise negative impacts and maximise benefits of future trade agreements. […]

By |2018-05-02T08:09:44+01:002 May 2018|UK - Non EU, UK- EU|0 Comments

Sustainability Impact Assessment for post-Brexit Britain

15 February 2018 Rob Amos, Research Fellow in Law, Sussex Sustainability Research Programme, University of Sussex. Rob is conducting a project on Sustainable Trade Post-Brexit in collaboration with the UK Trade Policy Observatory. As the UK begins to devise its independent trade policy, it is essential that any new trade agreements it negotiates are subject to Parliamentary, as well as public, oversight and scrutiny. To facilitate such oversight, the UK should undertake Sustainability Impact Assessment (SIA) for these agreements. If the UK is serious about sustainable development, it must ensure that any future trade agreements do not negatively impact the environment and communities either at home or abroad. […]

By |2018-02-15T21:04:42+00:0015 February 2018|UK - Non EU, UK- EU|3 Comments

What do the General Election Manifestos say about International Trade? Green Party

24 May 2017 Compiled by Fellows of UKTPO Brexit will leave many areas of UK policy open to change. International trade policy is among the most important of these for UK prosperity and also among the most immediate because the status quo cannot simply be extended. This is the fourth in a series of blogs reporting what the major political parties say about trade policy in their 2017 manifestos, as they become available. The UK Trade Policy Observatory (UKTPO) has set out a series of issues that it believes should be considered in any election manifesto that might form the basis of the UK’s future trade policy. The table below checks whether or not the Green Party Manifesto mentions these important elements explicitly or implicitly. Following that we offer a brief commentary on the treatment of trade policy in the manifesto. A central aim of the Green Party is for the UK to remain in the EU, or at least in the single market. The former implies no change to current trade policies and hence little need to discuss them in the manifesto. Thus their coverage of trade policy beyond that with the EU is restricted to human rights and [...]

By |2017-05-24T10:02:52+01:0024 May 2017|UK - Non EU, UK- EU|0 Comments
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