Books.org participates in affiliate programs including Bookshop.org and the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program. We may earn a commission from qualifying purchases made through links on this page, at no additional cost to you.
Synopsis
The global trading system starkly exemplifies some of the historical and current inequities which are at the core of continuing controversies surrounding economic globalization. On the other hand, trade has an enormous potential to contribute to human development. This timely book addresses a range of critical questions: Do trading arrangements -current and proposed - maximize the possibilities of development? Can a developing country’s autonomy be preserved while respecting the legitimate objectives of advanced industrial countries to maintain high labour, social and environmental standards at home? Would such a regime be human-development friendly? This far-reaching assessment of the current multilateral trade regime looks in detail at the way it has worked under the World Trade Organization, tracing its origins from the GATT, and analysing how it can be improved for it genuinely to contribute to human development.
The book is certain to make a major contribution to the debates surrounding globalization and the impact of trade on the poor, on social stability and on the environment. It will become a benchmark for future policy discussion and analysis.
Gerry Helleiner
The UNDP deserves the world s thanks for this authoritative and up-to-date analysis of why so many advocates of human development have so much trouble supporting either the fashionable general enthusiasm for trade liberalization or a good many of the specifics of the current international trade regime. Professional and hard-hitting, it addresses what could, with the necessary political will, be done to make trade and the global trade policy regime at last truly work for human development. It must be read by trade policy-makers and analysts in both North and South. Its challenges simply cannot be ignored.