| dc.description.abstract | This article is the third and final part of a trilogy, the argument of which is that the Doha Round is a failed instrument of counterterrorism. The Round, launched in November, 2001, was supposed to make the world safe for free trade, but not simply to realize net economic welfare gains from reductions in barriers to cross-border flows of goods, services, and intellectual property. Rather, the original intent was to connect those gains to the threat posed by violent extremist organizations (“VEOs”) in the post-9/11 world. The gains were intended to be channeled, in no small part, to poor, marginalized Muslim communities that otherwise might be recruitment grounds for VEOs acting (falsely, to be sure) in the name of “Islam.”
Part Three makes the argument in the context of trade remedies, so called “rules” covering antidumping (“AD”), countervailing duties (“CVD”), and fishing subsidies. It also does so in the context of trade facilitation, which refers to customs procedures. As with Parts One and Two, the context of Part Three is technical. The devil, in the sense of straying from the initial purpose of the Doha Round, is in the details, in the sense of lengthy, mind-numbing draft modalities texts. The Texts critically analyzed here are the December 2008 Draft Rules Text, April 2011 Rules Document, December 2009 Draft Trade Facilitation Text, and April 2011 Trade Facilitation Document.
This Part completes the trilogy with comments on the missing middle “D” in the Doha Development Agenda (“DDA”). It also charts out, in a preliminary manner, potential special dispensations in international trade law for Islamic countries. Consequently, Part Three concludes where Part One began, and where the Doha Round did, too: with thoughts about how to link trade liberalization to poverty alleviation, and thereby reduce vulnerability to Islamist extremism. These concluding observations, like those of Parts One and Two, support the trilogy’s overall argument that the Round is not about trade liberalization, poverty alleviation, or reducing threats from VEOs. | |
