GATT and WTO

7-18 July, GATT/ WTO 50th ANNIVERSARY CONFERENCE, University of Warwick.

Organiser: Prof. John Walley.

The University of Warwick’s ESRC Centre for the Study of Globalisation and Regionalisation will host a Conference in honour of the 50th Anniversary of the signing of the GATT in 1946. The conference will gather major contributors to research and scholarship on the GATT for two days of forward-looking discussion as to where the Trading System might be headed.

Speakers include: Jagdish Bhagwati (Columbia University), David Greenaway (University of Nottingham), Patrick Low (Director of Research, WTO), Arvind Panagariya (University of Maryland), Andre Sapir (Free University of Brussels), Bob Staiger (University of Wisconsin), Stefan Tangermann (University of Goettingen), Diana Tussie (FLACSO), Dean Spinanger (Keil Institute of World Economics), John Whalley (University of Warwick), Yang Yongzheng (Australian National University).

World Capital Markets and Financial Crises

24-25 July, University of Warwick. Organiser: Prof. Marcus Miller.

There is a transcript available of the conference's roundtable chaired by Jim Rollo (Foreign Commonwealth Office). The roundtable participants are Richard Portes (London Business School) on early warning indicators and lender-of-last-resort ; Philip Turner (Bank for International Settlements) on risk in financial markets and the role of the public sector in that context ; Charles Goodhart (London School of Economics) on the impact of external events on the exchange rate and also the treatment of foreign currency debt, which has implications for the IMF programs ; David Vines (Oxford University) on minimising vulnerability ; and Vinod Aggerwal (BASC, University of Berkeley) on the US as a political actor in the Asia crisis.

Click here for a programme of this conference

Social Movements and Social Institutions in a Global Age

19–22 March 1998, University of Warwick

The conference explored the ways in which social movements are successful in ‘out-reaching’ from the local to the international space because of new understandings of the global arena. Papers addressed the issues arising from a changed perception of the global space both at the level international institutions that are recognising the limitations of the power of the national states, as well as at the level of grassroots social movements. They analysed how these are able to approach, make alliances with, and lobby international movements and institutions without having to go through state machinery at the national level. Agenda setting, policy initiatives, regulation of policy and policy outcomes were discussed. Emphasis was placed on how the actors come into the public arena with differentiated resources, via various access points, with different expectations. How does this new relationship between international social movements and international social institutions work? What are the tensions that result from this shift in focus from the nation-state to social movements? The conference addressed these questions through theoretical and empirical contributions of the participants in six specific areas – human rights, labour rights, women’s rights, peace movements, the green movement, and religious movements.

Overseas speakers included: Jose Casanova (New School for Social Research), Paul Havemann (Waikato), Paul Lubeck (California) and Beverly Silver (Johns Hopkins). UK based speakers included: Sarah Ashwin (LSE), Upendra Baxi (Warwick), Jim Beckford (Warwick), Christine Chinkin (LSE), Cynthia Cockburn (City University), Rebecca Johnson (The Acronym Institute), John Mattausch (Royal Holloway), Ronaldo Munck (Liverpool), Peter Newell (Warwick), Linda Shaw (Manchester), Barbara Stapleton (Independent Television Producer), Steven Yearly (York) and Peter Willetts (City University).