An Introduction to World Trade Organization

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An Introduction to World Trade Organization
"An Introduction to World Trade Organization" delivers an overview perspective on modern and contemporary international trade law. This book is non-fiction: informative with in-depth research. This book is an excellent resource for students, educators, and trade law enthusiasts. It is an intellectual effort, a contribution by Prof. Dr Kumar Ingnam who has been engaged as a Professor of International Trade laws in Kathmandu School of Law and enjoyed a deserved formidable reputation based on the long career in legal writing. Since the book is the outgrowth of his experience in teaching international trade laws, its resources are rich, diversely collected and well cited. This book clarifies a range of topics through tables and diagrams and directs the reader to relevant further reading, online resources, and journals throughout.
As one of the branches of public international law, international trade law is a complicated and cumbersome subject as it is ever-expanding. In contrast, this book primarily attempts to simplify the multilateral arrangements of the WTO agreements along with its analysis. Following the traditional style of writing books, the book contains the core description of the panel and appellate body reports, comprehensive abbreviation of the terminology applied in International Trade Law fraternity, an Annex encompassing the contracting party of the WTO, and accessions and successions to GATT and accession to the WTO. The book also offers a comprehensive and informed analysis of the complexities of a WTO arrangement in a lucid manner.  Chapter 10,11,12,13,14,15,16,17,18,19,20 and 21 respectively deals with Non-Tariff Barrier Measures, Pre-shipment Inspection, Rules of Origin, Import Licensing, Custom Valuation, Anti-dumping, Safeguards; Emergency Protection from imports, General Agreement on Trade in Services, Traderelated aspects of Intellectual Property Rights, Plurilateral Agreements, Government Procurement and other Plurilateral agreements. Furthermore, Chapter 22 focuses on the importance of trade policy reviews for transparency in WTO framework. The most important chapter which the reviewer found is Chapter 23 which deals with the dispute settlement mechanism of the WTO.
The author has cautiously avoided the anomalies of vagueness or overstretched deliberation. It avoids scant presentation that would not do justice to students, educators, and trade law enthusiasts. In terms of understanding the idea conveyed by the book, the language used is simple with lucid style. The author has been successful in giving the complete and real pictures of international trade law. The author attempts to provide ample account of the law and practice of international trade. The work attempts to reflect the numerous developments which has taken place in WTO framework. The Chapters in the book are organized maintaining the sequence and coherent. Adopting a comparative method, the book analyses the basic legal instruments and jurisprudence employed by the WTO in various disputes to liberalize International Trade among the respective members. The book implicitly recognizes that International Trade Law is one of the growing areas of legal practice. The most praise-worthy part of this book is that the author has not made a single comment criticizing the sorts of economic order (open market economy) advocated by the WTO pundits and consequences of liberalized economic order. Indeed, the central thesis of the author is: the internationalization of trade and commerce coupled with a demonstrable attempt by the WTO to liberalize world trade.
However, the reviewers has identified the pitfalls of the books too. Since it not revised, many new events have occurred that has affected international trade policies. The reviewers hopes that in the upcoming revised edition this shall be accommodated including the potential effects of USA regression towards mercantilism economic modality. Secondly, an important event for the WTO arrangements was the Global Financial Crisis which began in 2007. The crisis affected all and International Trade Law was no exception. To be critical enough, the book also failed to point out the effects it made on WTO arrangements. Moreover, the book has not shown the effect the parallel regional trading arrangements have had in the WTO legal regimes. The book would be more reader-friendly had the book contained questions and assignments to allow readers to assess their understanding and develop useful practical skills. The reviewers also expects a helpful summary as well as an exercise on specific, true-to-life international trade problems to check the readers' understanding.
Upon the study of the book, the reviewers have internalized that WTO arrangements are essential for those studying and practicing law, business, banking, and finance.
The reviewers believe the book as a comprehensive snapshot of the law of WTO,