Developing Economies and Newly Globalized Trade: New Rules to Fleece the South

Neoliberal ideology forms the political backbone and background of present changes in economic and social systems. Trade policies in particular are often used to preach the advantages of globalization. This chapter shows that the new trade regime is heavily biased, tilting trade relations further against small countries and the South. Rather than being a rule-based system upholding the rule of law, and protecting the contractual rights of Southern or smaller countries in general, it is a pseudo-legal club to beat weaker countries with, even though bigger Southern Countries, such as India or China, are not always defenceless. Larger countries can choose whether to comply with dispute settlement findings or not. This chapter gives many examples. Recent attempts to change the dispute solution mechanism even more away from equal treatment before the law bode ill for weaker members. The much touted “Development Round” turned out not to have had much development effects, serving Northern interests instead. Furthermore, the WTO offers itself publicly as a means to outsmart parliaments and democracy. While the WTO has served to establish basic commitments, the North meanwhile prefer bilateral investment treaties in order to press WTO-plus obligations on the South, obligations that could not get through multilateral WTO negotiations. Present unilateral actions by the USA illustrate once again the weakness and limited usefulness of the WTO framework.