Trade negotiators rarely get to celebrate a victory. The United States, for example, has been negotiating over 15 bilateral free trade agreements, with none concluded since the Korea-US agreement was finalized at the end of 2010. This makes the recently finalized Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) agreement between the United States and 11 other countries all the more remarkable. But the TPP still faces major hurdles, not least a divisive ratification debate in the U.S. Congress, which has already become entangled in presidential electioneering. Meanwhile, as WTO delegates prepare for their biannual ministerial meeting in Nairobi in December, they are unable to agree even on whether they should switch off the respirator on the the Doha Development Agenda, a multilateral trade round that was initiated back in December 2001, which has been floundering over at least the last seven years.
International trade has doubled as a share of world GDP over the last 50 years. Without it, the global economy would grind to a halt. The highways of trade are much freer today than they were decades ago, but there are still plenty of barriers. If the world is to move beyond the slow growth that has followed the 2007–8 crisis (what the IMF calls the “mediocre new normal”) it will have to continue to chip away at these impediments, or at least prevent the creation of new ones.
One place to start is to address some dangerous misconceptions about international trade. Some of these bad ideas are new, others have been around for a long time and have routinely been disproved. These ideas can impede progress, and if they get into enough of the wrong heads, they are bound to lead to big policy mistakes.
The President of the Center for International Relations and Sustainable Development (CIRSD), Vuk Jeremić delivered a lecture at ADA University, Azerbaijan’s top-tier educational institution entitled "Geopolitics of the Balkans and How it Relates to the Caucasus”.
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Vuk Jeremić lectures at the Diplomatic Academy in Vienna
At the invitation of the Diplomatic Academy in Vienna, one of the most prestigious and oldest schools on the European continent, CIRSD President Vuk Jeremić delivered a lecture entitled “(Geo)politics of the Balkans: The Revenge of History”, on February 7th, 2023.
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Prof. Sachs: “Sanctions against Russia ineffective and contrary to international law”
CIRSD had the privilege to host one of the world’s brightest minds and most famous economists – Prof. Dr Jeffrey Sachs in a live discussion titled "The winter of Our Discontent".
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Central Asia: The Age of Reform
The Center for International Relations and Sustainable Development (CIRSD) co-organized a conference on December 7, 2022, titled “Central Asia: The Age of Reform” at the Diplomatic Academy of Vienna, one of the most prestigious and oldest (1754) schools in Europe.
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