Outside looking in: non-accession to the WTO

Abstract

Since its institutional birth in 1947, the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) / World Trade Organization (WTO) has mushroomed from 23 original contracting parties to 157 members as of September 2012. Another 28 countries are currently observers, each at varying stages of the accession process. WTO members and observers cover some 99 per cent of the world's population and over 99 per cent of global trade. However, there are still 13 states outside the multilateral rules-based trading system. This paper argues that existing explanations of membership and accession do not fully explain why these states remain outside the WTO, with implications for membership in international institutions generally. The paper tests hypotheses of non-membership based on a lack of willingness (domestic support), ability (technical capacity) or external pressure, and augments these statistical findings with a comparative country-level narrative of WTO (non-)accession decision-making in two small island countries.

Notes

¹ Their dataset is available online from the Review of International Organizations. While their paper suggests seven of the outsiders are included in their study a perusal of the replication data suggests that their models excluded all but one of the outsiders due to incomplete data.

² This analysis does not include South Sudan.

³ See Ingebritsen et al (2006), Panke (2012a), Börzel (2002), Young (1989) and Finger and Schuler (2000) for an example of each, respectively.

⁴ That is, states that had not yet begun the accession process prior to the conclusion of the Marrakesh agreement.

⁵ Full ‘impute’ specifications run with the natural log of GDP per capita (Model X) return results consistent with Model X when accounting for Monaco and San Marino, which have relatively low levels of diplomatic capacity but high GDP per capita.

⁶ I also test models (available upon request) using a straight count of diplomatic missions and the natural log of the number of diplomatic missions and find no substantive difference in results.

⁷ I omit Copelovitch and Ohls's (2012) other controls, as they are captured by my other measures or are irrelevant to my research question (colonial past).

⁸ These individuals are in the Division of Trade and Investment and include the assistant secretary of trade and investment, a deputy assistant secretary of trade and investment and a trade policy analyst.

⁹ Discussions with officials from the FSM Department of Resources and Development, August 2010.

¹⁰ Direct observation from workshop participant.

¹¹ Discussions with officials from the FSM Department of Resources and Development, August 2010.

¹² While Samoa's participation in the IMF programmes was in the 1980s, they did participate in several economic-liberalization projects led by the Asian Development Bank in the 1990s. However, review of relevant project documentation and interviews with Samoan government official suggest that WTO accession was neither an explicit nor implicit aspect of these programmes.

¹³ The core trade staff are in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade (MFAT) and include a deputy chief executive officer of MFAT, a principal trade officer and a trade officer. A Samoan government trade official confirmed in an interview (18 January 2013) that the line ministries ‘contributed significantly’ to the WTO accession process.

¹⁴ Strong political will in the government of Samoa was also affirmed in an interview (18 January 2013) with a Samoan trade official as the main reason for Samoa seeking accession.

¹⁵ Interview, 18 January 2013.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Samuel Brazys

Samuel Brazys is a lecturer in international relations at the University College Dublin. He completed his PhD at Indiana University. Previously, he worked as an economic adviser to the FSM. Email: [email protected]