On the whole, one doesn't look forward to the perusal of official publications with anything like strong positive expectations. In fact, however, the 2007 World Trade Report from the WTO is a terrific piece of work. In fact, it is two and a half pieces of work (all good, though differentially good). The ‘half’ is the World Trade Report proper: 12 pages of straightforward and useful discussion of trends in international trade; followed by about 18 pages made up of two interesting essays, one on the information technology agreement (the most important post-Uruguay round accomplishment of the WTO), and one on global imbalances and trade. As usual, the discussion is complemented by a large number of excellent charts and tables. The meat of the report is something like 350 (large) pages reflecting on ‘Six Decades of Multilateral Trade Cooperation: What Have We Learned?’. This isn't really a single, coherent document, but two essentially book-length documents for the price of one. The first, comprising chapters B2-6 and all of chapter C, is essentially a survey of the analytical research on trade cooperation; the second, comprising chapter D, is a review of the history of trade cooperation in the GATT/WTO era, and the challenges that cooperation faces. Chapter B1 provides historical context for the GATT/WTO era and really belongs with the second ‘book’. Each of these ‘books’ is worth commenting on in a bit more detail.

The survey of analytical research on trade cooperation proceeds in two chapters. The first deals with attempts to explain trade cooperation among nations in general. The method of this chapter is broadly taxonomic. For each of three broad research traditions (economics, political science, and law), the authors review the way scholars in those traditions view their own fields. An enormous amount of literature passes under review in this chapter, and it would be a very well read scholar that is conversant in all of them. Given the large range of literature covered, it is not surprising that there are a number of characterizations or evaluations that will strike one as less than ideal. However, these are relatively few, and will probably vary from reader to reader. My sense, from the sections discussing work I know well, is that this is a generally very reliable survey of an exceptionally wide range of literature. My only real disappointment with this chapter is that there is no sustained effort at synthesis among these research traditions. For all the difference in jargon between political science and economics, there are deep continuities between these traditions; and both fields would be better for a sustained effort at teasing out those continuities.Footnote ¹ The chapter ends with an attempt to relate these research traditions to one another, but this appears as an afterthought and is no substitute for real synthesis.

Chapter C is much more coherent, though still essentially theoretical in focus. The core of this chapter is an attempt to use bargaining and contract theory as a framework for discussing ‘The Design of Trade Agreements’. After laying out the basic framework, as used primarily in economic research, the authors then work through core norms of the GATT/WTO system: reciprocity; the most favored nation principle; exceptions to MFN (PTAs, and special and differential treatment for less developed countries); contingent protection (a national sovereignty norm); enforcement; and transparency.

For me, the real gem in this report is Chapter D: ‘Sixty Years of the Multilateral Trading System: Achievements and Challenges’. This is an excellent presentation of the history of the GATT/WTO system, with an emphasis on the WTO. This discussion starts with a discussion of liberalization and dispute settlement, the two core positive functions of the WTO. The discussion here is clear, detailed enough to be genuinely useful as an introduction to the institution, and supported by a large number of extremely useful charts, tables, and boxes. The remainder of this chapter focuses on challenges facing the institution: expansion of membership to include very large numbers of developing countries and economies in transition; the growth of regionalism; the decision-making process in the WTO; and new issues (competition policy, labor, intellectual property, and environment). Only the last of these was a bit disappointing. First, nothing in the text really distinguishes between competition and labor policy, which appear not to be serious contenders in the near term future; and intellectual property and environment, which are already part of the institution (the former via the TRIPs agreement, the latter via the dispute resolution process), but deeply controversial. Second, even internal to the discussions of each, the presentation is so sanitized as to make it unclear to the reader that, at least in the case of TRIPs and the environment, there is genuine controversy, or why that controversy exists at all. Ultimately, this is a small quibble. This section is truly first-rate.

The structure of the overall report suggests that the theoretical material, presented in Chapters B and C, in some sense motivates the discussion of the historical evolution of the GATT/WTO system, and its current challenges. But even a cursory reading of the overall document suggests that this is clearly not the case. In fact, one strongly gets the impression that exactly the reverse is the case. That is, the theoretical material is more-or-less irrelevant to a clear understanding of the GATT/WTO system, but that the GATT/WTO system is an interesting laboratory for evaluating the performance of the various theoretical frameworks. This suggests a piece of advice for someone considering reading this document in its entirety (a very worthwhile thing to do): start with section B.1 (historical context); proceed to Chapter D; and – if one is interested in current analytical work in economics, law, and political science – proceed to the remainder of Chapter B and all of Chapter C. Contrary to my initial expectations, I thoroughly enjoyed reading this document. Chapter D would make an excellent supplement to any course on the world trading system. In this regard, it is worth noting that the entire document is available to download in pdf at http://www.wto.org/english/res_e/reser_e/wtr_arc_e.htm. In addition, the many excellent tables, many of which I certainly plan to use to supplement lectures, are downloadable in excel format at http://www.Wto.org/english/res_e/reser_e/wtr2007_e.zip.