On the road to Liberty

The new bilateral free-trade agreement between South Korea and India is not all it's cracked up to be: there are plenty of exceptions and the package will take 10 years to implement. Chung-Ho Kim of South Korean, and I argue here that fully free trade is the best possible way of recovering from the global slump, in this article titled " When free trade means so little ", published in the Mint on Aug 6 2009. India and South Korea are due to sign an agreement on Friday 7 August that they say will cut barriers and boost trade between our two important economies. But behind the political rhetoric, the reality of the Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA) is in the fine print. By signing a freetrade agreement that does not actually free trade, our governments are denying us the best tools to fight the global recession. They admit as much by saying it will pave the way for removing more barriers to commerce in the future, even though this agreement has been in th...

THE World Trade Organization dispute between the EU and the US, Canada and Argentina over the EU's longstanding moratorium on genetically modified (GM) crops ñ due to be decided this week ñ is not about winners and losers. It is about the so-called precautionary principle, which has theoretically allowed the EU to close its borders to a large portion of the world's agricultural produce. The result of this case could have ramifications throughout the world, particularly for other innovative industry sectors. My article titled Why precautionary principle can damage wealth and health was published in European Voice on June 10 2004 THE World Trade Organization dispute between the EU and the US, Canada and Argentina over the EU's longstanding moratorium on genetically modified (GM) crops - due to be decided this week - is not about winners and losers. It is about the so-called precautionary principle, which has theoretically allowed the EU to close its borders to a large portio...