Mitigating the impact of the economic crisis will require using all the tools necessary to regain a sustainable path to growth. This includes measures to support trade expansion, including in developing countries, such as those in Africa. This paper provides context for understanding why trade facilitation and lowering trade costs matter to Africa both today and over the long term. Trade costs are higher in Africa than in other regions. Using gravity-model estimates, the authors compute ad-valorem equivalents of improvements in trade indicators for a sample of African countries. The evidence suggests that the gains for African exporters from cutting trade costs half-way to the level of Mauritius has a greater effect on trade flows than a substantial cut in tariff barriers. As an example, improving logistics so that Ethiopia cuts its costs of trading a standardized container of goods half-way to the level in Mauritius would be roughly equivalent to a 7.6% cut in tariffs faced by Ethiopian exporters across all importers.

This article's subject is the implications that consensus/unanimity and majority voting might have for the World Trade Organization's (WTO) decision-making system. First it looks at some consequences that replacing the consensus rule with majority voting might have for the WTO, including justice concerns, legitimacy, homogeneity of WTO membership, and international enforcement. Second, it summarizes some solutions found in the European Union (EU) for coping with unanimity and majority rule, including constructive abstention, reallocation of contractual responsibilities, and the Luxembourg compromise. Finally, it considers some reform options for the WTO and offers some conclusions, namely expanding majority voting on certain areas only, redefining competences, multi-speed proposals (rethinking the single undertaking, constructive abstention, and the scheduling approach), redefining consensus, combining consensus and majority voting, and issuing interpretations.

Energy has come to the forefront of the public debate in the past decade for two main reasons: the first relates to the lack of a secure, continuous, and unconditional energy supply in the importing countries, mostly developed and transition economies, which are still dependent on non-renewable carbon-based fossil fuels. The second reason is that uncontrolled production, distribution, and use of conventional energy may lead to environmental degradation and global warming. Renewable energy certificates (RECs) are instruments that allow countries to promote energy generation from renewables and form part of domestic policies aimed at climate change mitigation and adaptation. Since RECs can be traded in secondary markets, this paper discusses issues raised by the nature of and the trade in RECs which can be of concern for the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) and the multilateral regulation of trade in financial services, notably in the case where World Trade Organisation (WTO) Members undertook sweeping commitments in financial services which equally apply to trade in RECs.