Free Trade or Fair Trade? How conducive is the present international trade system to development? Mehdi Shafaeddin

Focusing on frictions between developing countries and industrial economies in the area of trade in manufactured goods, this paper argues that the deadlock in negotiations during the recent WTO meetings is related to a number of fallacies and contradictions surrounding both the theories and practices of universal trade liberalization and infant industry protection. Given that these fallacies have resulted in contradictions in the design and implementation of WTO rules to the detriment of the interests of developing countries, it is argued that there is a need to design a new trade policy for developing countries as well as to revise international trade rules.

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