I'll concede that the WTO process is unnecessarily (perhaps even outrageously) opaque, but note that I did not say nothing was wrong with the WTO. I said nothing was wrong with world trade (which, if you'll read carefully, is the question posed in the title, content of Newman's post aside) in this particular case. As for the notion the WTO can "overturn" a nation's law -- well, nonsense. The WTO can give permission for one nation to impose a penalty on another if the offending nation's laws are found to violate what is fundamentally an international agreement, but nothing says that the nation in question must change said law. It could also simply choose to pay (as many nations have done).

And yes, of course, the burden of paying falls far more heavily on the poorer nations. I'll be the first to say the system is far from ideal. Not ideal, however, is not the same as broken, and it is worth mentioning that most trade disputes brought up before the WTO are between wealthy nations.

As for whether or not the WTO has any weight on this issue, I think there's room to argue that it does. But if in fact it doesn't, then simply put this is not a trade issue -- and by extension the comparison of China's web-blocking ways to America's shutting down of gambling sites is nonsensical. Call this a human right's issue, perhaps, but leave the WTO out of it.

Posted at July 20, 2006 1:16 PM in response to What's Wrong With World Trade

I think you may be mixing cause and effect here. I haven't read the book, but the description says, "Economic development does not generate democracies, but democracies are much more likely to survive in wealthy societies." Human rights issues won't magically go away just because people are richer. Indeed, one could argue that it is democracy that leads to greater economic welfare. Waiting for China's per capita income to reach $6,000 may well mean waiting forever.

Posted at July 20, 2006 11:59 AM in response to What's Wrong With World Trade

Let us first stop working under the assumption that the fault here lies with the WTO. An international organization is only as good as its members, and as you'll note from the NY Times article, any member can ask the WTO to investigate whether or not another member is violating the law. This is not some issue that we should expect Pascal Lamy to get up in arms about. Neither does the US need to play a particular role here. Censorship of the web does, after all, affect everyone (though given the prominance of the American technology firms involved, the US government is perhaps in a better position to do something than most).

So what is wrong with world trade? In this case, absolutely nothing. The mechanism for dealing with China is in place. We simply need someone with the political will to step up and start the process.

Posted at July 20, 2006 10:37 AM in response to What's Wrong With World Trade

A few things:

First, I think these posts giving some insight into the direction of the site are just great. I've been involved in far too may web projects where features just sort of appear one day, and everyone is left stumbling around half blind until they figure out what it is, and whether or not they like it. So please, keep these coming,

Second, with regard to moderating comments, you may want to take a look at the way slashdot handles it, if you haven't already. They have a level of moderation called "meta-moderation" where users are able to view posts and decide whether or not they were moderated appropriately (i.e. fair or unfair). I believe in the particular case of slashdot that  too may moderations marked as unfair will result in a reduced ability for that user to moderate posts. In the case of TPMCafe, where every user can moderate, you may simply want to remove moderation points that enough other users deem to be unfair. This would also be a good place to put any guidlines you might have for what sort of moderation is fair and what is foul.

Lastly, my only word of caution is beware of adding too much. The old adage may be that too may cooks spoil the soup, but I think it's just as accurate to say that too many ingredients will as well. Be wary of adding too many bells and whistles, as in the long run they'll only serve to distract the users from what this site is meant to focus on (not to mention the fact that the more features there are, the more maintennace this site will require).

TPMCafe has rapidly become one of my favorite websites, and I'm sure with such a fine team behind it it will only improve with time. Kudos all around. 

Posted at August 19, 2005 9:54 AM in response to Future Direction of TPMCafe

"Unless I've missed something, the administration has clearly rejected the first step you recommended: disclaiming any interest in a long-term military presence in Iraq (i.e., permanent bases)."

 I do tend to think that, other issues duely noted, this is the real kicker of the bunch. Again and again the terrorist groups that attack Americans have listed our military presence in the region as a driving force in their actions against us. Whether our presence there is justified by any legal or moral standard is beside the point. So long as we maintain a military force within Iraq, we will never be able to completely rid ourselves of the threat of terrorism.

 So what possible reason can we have for establishing permanent bases in Iraq? Cynical, conspiratorial notions aside, is there any valid reason to hold troops there? Has anyone asked the Bush administration why they feel that a free, democratic Iraq would not be enough to ensure long-term stability in the region all on its own?

Posted at August 9, 2005 7:12 AM in response to Are We At the Tipping Point?