{"id":69,"date":"2009-06-24T13:49:13","date_gmt":"2009-06-24T17:49:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/pardee\/multimedia\/seminar-trade-april-08\/"},"modified":"2016-08-30T13:13:26","modified_gmt":"2016-08-30T17:13:26","slug":"seminar-trade-april-08","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/pardee\/seminar-trade-april-08\/","title":{"rendered":"Future Challenges: Trade and Development"},"content":{"rendered":"<h3>VIDEO: Pardee Center Seminar<\/h3>\n<p>April 7, 2008<br \/>\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"425\" height=\"349\" src=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/fvrtTx286RI\" frameborder=\"0\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Inequity in the distribution of wealth both within countries and among them and the need to support local economies &#8220;at the bottom of the pyramid&#8221; were recurring themes in <a href=\"http:\/\/www.bu.edu\/phpbin\/news-cms\/news\/?dept=1804&amp;id=49228\">a conversation about trade and development at the Pardee Center&#8217;s &#8220;Future Challenges&#8221; seminar<\/a> on April 7.<\/p>\n<p>Thirty people participated in the second lunch time seminar in the series held in the third-floor conference room at the Pardee House. The panelists included <strong>Tariq Banuri<\/strong> of the Stockholm Environment Institute and chair of the board of the International Center for Trade and Sustainable Development (ICTSD); <strong>Sushil Vachani<\/strong>, Professor in the strategy and policy department at the BU School of Management; and <strong>Kevin Outterson<\/strong>, Associate Professor at the BU School of Law. <strong>Adil Najam<\/strong>, director of the Frederick S. Pardee Center for the Study of the Longer-Range Future and Professor of international relations, moderated the discussion.<\/p>\n<p>Banuri initially raised the importance of the issue of unequal distribution of wealth as a factor influencing trade policies in the long-run. He said that when citizens are feeling an increasing divide between the rich and poor and an erosion of the middle class within their own country, they &#8220;have no stomach for international agreements,&#8221; especially any programs that they perceive as potentially harmful to their own country&#8217;s economic interests. Use inequality &#8220;as the prism through which you look at the problem and it begins to make sense,&#8221; Banuri said. &#8220;Inequality within countries and inequalities between countries both need to be addressed.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.bu.edu\/phpbin\/news-cms\/news\/?dept=1804&amp;id=49228\"><img class=\"alignright\" src=\"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/pardee\/files\/news-cms\/photos\/Trade-Seminar-0811.jpg\" alt=\"Trade &amp; Development\" \/><\/a>Vachani spoke of different models of development in local villages in India, where collaborations among government, non-government organizations and local citizens are delivering much-needed services in high-quality, low-cost fashion. He specifically spoke of one model that gives local merchants access to world markets through provision of computers with satellite links and training in how to use them.<\/p>\n<p>Outterson addressed concerns about the future of the World Trade Organization (WTO), characterizing it as &#8220;almost irrevocablybroken&#8221; in large part because consumer interest groups and advocates have very little voice in the process of policy development, while governments and special interest lobbyists have a very strong influence on the decisions that ultimately get made. He said that bilateral &#8220;free trade agreements&#8221; between countries have become a common mechanism for nations who don&#8217;t get what they want from WTO negotiations, but in reality those bilateral agreements often don&#8217;t really provide for free trade; they get used by a dominant country to make favorable agreements, often including policies that affect domestic issues, such as intellectual property rights provision in a recent agreement between the US and Australia.<\/p>\n<p>Outterson says the WTO could be a positive force, if it can become &#8220;more democratic, more transparent and less influenced by lobbyists.&#8221; If the U.S. and other countries would &#8220;swear off the bilateral weapon&#8221; in the next round of WTO negotiations, that would help movement toward a more global consensus, he added.<\/p>\n<p>A report of the event can be read <a href=\"http:\/\/www.bu.edu\/phpbin\/news-cms\/news\/?dept=1804&amp;id=49228\">here<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Run time: 1:36:43<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<h3>About the Speakers<\/h3>\n<p><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.sei.se\/index.php?page=staffbiog&amp;staffid=A1\">Tariq Banuri<\/a><\/strong> is with the Stockholm Environment Institute and chair of the board of the International Center for Trade and Sustainable Development (ICTSD); <strong>Sushil Vachani<\/strong> is Professor in the strategy and policy department at the BU School of Management; and <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.bu.edu\/law\/faculty\/profiles\/bios\/full-time\/outterson_k.html\">Kevin Outterson<\/a><\/strong> is Associate Professor at the BU School of Law. <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/pardee\/\/staff\/adil-najam\/\">Adil Najam<\/a><\/strong>, director of the Frederick S. Pardee Center for the Study of the Longer-Range Future and Professor of international relations, moderated the discussion.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>VIDEO: Pardee Center Seminar April 7, 2008 Inequity in the distribution of wealth both within countries and among them and the need to support local economies &#8220;at the bottom of the pyramid&#8221; were recurring themes in a conversation about trade and development at the Pardee Center&#8217;s &#8220;Future Challenges&#8221; seminar on April 7. Thirty people participated [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":197,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/pardee\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/69"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/pardee\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/pardee\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/pardee\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/pardee\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=69"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/pardee\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/69\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":25185,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/pardee\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/69\/revisions\/25185"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/pardee\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=69"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}