Gary Sampson
Gary Sampson is Professor of International Trade at the Melbourne Business School, former Director at the GATT and WTO, and Senior Counsellor to the Director General”
Gary's recent articles
19 February 2025
Causes of peace… and war
Before attending a recent talk by Geoffrey Blainey entitled “The Causes of War”, I looked again at his monumental volume – “Causes of War”. The first sentence of Chapter One reads: “For every thousand pages published on the causes of wars there is less than one page directly on the causes of peace.” I agree.
7 November 2023
China's removal of tariffs on Australian wine: Is it what it seems?
Chinas offer to negotiate the removal of its tariffs on imports of Australian wine is seen by many as a generous act to facilitate the current visit by the Prime Minister.
14 January 2023
Will engaging China in WTO multilateral trade discussions help reset relations?
The current WTO rules were negotiated during the Uruguay Round without China involved or even in mind. The expectation was that China would evolve into a market economy and WTO rules would apply. China has not evolved as expected; should China change its state-controlled economy, or should WTO rules be rewritten to accommodate China?
16 March 2022
Russia, Ukraine and trade sanctions. What role for Australia?
To have maximum effect, measures taken to address the widely condemned actions of President Putin in Ukraine should be coordinated with the support of the largest number of countries possible. One key question is how trade penalties can best be applied to achieve this goal. In addressing this question Australia has a key role to play.
24 November 2021
US-China tariff stoush fosters a protection racket. Australia is on the 'hit list'
The wrecking ball Trump took to the global trading system is still swinging, with implications for Australian trade and even the survival of the WTO.
21 July 2021
Reforming global trade rules for agriculture: The time has come
According to the recent G7 2021 Summit Declaration: We stand united in our commitment to free and fair trade with a modernised rulebook and a reformed World Trade Organization. Nowhere is a modernised rules book more needed than for world agricultural production and trade. Without it, the consequences for Australian farmers will be dreadful. The timing to bring common sense to global agriculture is opportune, to say the least.
30 June 2021
Carbon Leakage: the Achilles heel of climate change
Not dealing with carbon leakage has plagued emission reduction negotiations since the United Nations Climate Change Convention of 1994. It led to the failure of the US to ratify the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, then the Protocol itself, and may well lead to the demise of not only the 2015 Paris Accord but the WTO.
15 June 2021
G7 declaration and WTO reform: war or peace?
Cordell Hull, winner of the 1947 Nobel Peace Prize, wrote removing trade barriers would go a long way toward eliminating war. More recently Donald Trump stated, trade wars are good, and easy to win. With a degeneration of the trading system and debilitating obstacles facing Australian exports to China, we are told the drums of war are beating. Does the G7 Declaration hold the solution to rising global trade tensions?
4 May 2021
WTO and climate change - a clash of treaties
The emission reduction measures proposed by governments to meet their Paris Climate Agreement commitments will violate their legally binding WTO obligations. This clash of treaties will have deleterious consequences for both.
1 October 2020
US/China trade war blunted by WTO rules
Preventing trade wars is a key function of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) rule-based system. But as the United States (U.S.) and China wage the largest trade war in history, the WTO finds itself on the sidelines unable to stop the fight. This is seen by many as further proof that the WTO has become ineffective and toothless.
8 September 2020
Trade reform for agriculture cannot wait
The scramble among nations to increase self-sufficiency and re-jig agriculture supply lines in the Covid-19 environment, together with increasing protectionism, points to an urgent need for Australia, together with regional partners, to rethink the legal structure that underpins this sector of world trade.
13 July 2020
Rocky Road as the UK and EU prepare to navigate through the WTO. Part 2
According to a Report of the House of Lords on various BREXIT outcomes: Trading with the EU under WTO rules alone would be the most disruptive option this optis therefore unattractive for UK-EU trade in goods and in services.
8 July 2020
BREXIT and the WTO
According to a report of the House of Lords on various BREXIT outcomes: Trading with the EU under WTO rules alone would be the most disruptive option this option is therefore unattractive for UK-EU trade in goods and in services.
5 May 2020
GARY SAMPSON. Australia joins group to overcome US blockage of WTO dispute settlement process
In the post Covid-19 world, with global trade in total disarray and predicted to fall by up to 32 per cent next year, Australia has never had a more pressing need of a strong rules-based trading system.
27 April 2020
GARY SAMPSON. Covid-19 and Tensions in the World Trading System
A collective G20 response to emerging trade tensions in the production and trade of medical products is critical to avoiding politically appealing but self-defeating trade policies.
4 September 2018
GARY P SAMPSON. BREXIT: A Pandoras Box awaits the UK at the WTO
Whether the U.K. crashes out from the E.U. or retains some residual connections with the Customs Union it will need to negotiate ab initio its position as an independent, free-standing member of the WTO. Indeed the U.K. is placing much reliance on the WTO for facilitating its future global trading arrangements. What difficulties will face the U.K. in achieving its post-E.U .trading status?