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Confronting Protectionism: How Business and Governments Can Build Support for Open Markets
29 Sep - 04 Oct, 2009
(Session 464)
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Faculty:
Carlo Trojan
(Co-Chair)
- Chairman, International Food & Agricultural Trade Policy Council (IPC), Washington, DC; former Ambassador of the European Commission to the WTO
Robbin Johnson
- President, Cargill Foundation, Minneapolis; Senior Adviser, Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs, University of Minnesota
James Kolbe
- Senior Transatlantic Fellow, The German Marshall Fund of the United States, Washington, DC; former Congressman, Arizona
Jean-Pierre Lehmann
- Professor of International Political Economy, IMD International, Lausanne; Founding Director of the Evian Group
Patrick Low
- Director of Economic Research, World Trade Organization, Geneva
Ricardo Melendez-Ortiz
- Executive Director, International Centre for Trade and Sustainable Development, Geneva
David O'Sullivan
Alan Rosling
- Chairman, Griffin Growth Partners Ltd, Hong Kong; former Executive Director, Tata Sons Ltd.
Jeffrey Schott
- Senior Fellow, Peterson Institute for International Economics, Washington, DC
Kari Tapiola
- Executive Director, International Labor Organization, Geneva
R. Eduardo Tempone
- Director of International Economic Negotiations, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, International Trade and Worship of Argentina, Buenos Aires
Luzius Wasescha
- Permanent Representative of Switzerland to the WTO, Geneva
Additional Session Support:
David Unterhalter
(Resource Specialist)
- David Unterhalter serves as the Chairman of the Appellate Body of the World Trade Organization. He has enjoyed a leading practice as a barrister in the fields of trade law, competition law, and public ...
Abstract:
With rising inequalities within and between countries in income and wealth, unfolding financial crisis, surging fuel and food prices and widespread fears of global recession, citizens of both developed and developing economies grow more skeptical about the benefits of free trade and globalization. After the collapse of another set of talks aimed at concluding the Doha Round in July 2008 there is a growing danger of protectionist backlash. Governments are under increasing pressure to cushion the blows from competition and to look for effective and benign ways of compensating potential losers. The new administration in Washington will be bound to conduct a review of U.S. trade policy, which could lead to years of delay before there are further meaningful trade talks. Meanwhile the concessions on offer from the EU and leading emerging economies such as India and Brazil will also be subject to vigorous internal discussion.
This policy-oriented session will bring together a high-level group of representatives from national governments, the business sector, economic and policy-oriented organizations, advocacy groups, and scholars from the United States, Europe, and major emerging economies (notably China, India, Brazil, South Africa) with the aim of focusing on policies needed in different countries to overcome the perceived or real losses that free trade and globalization seemingly inflict on certain sectors of their populations and to reduce public hostility to trade concessions.
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