IBS Professor Chad Bown
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The challenge facing Brandeis International Business School professor Chad P. Bown calls for the know-how of a locksmith coupled with the expertise of the most seasoned diplomat: finding the key to unlock the vast potential of the World Trade Organization (WTO) to narrow the gap between the world's haves and have-nots.
Bown, who has studied the inner workings of the Geneva-based trade organization for much of the last decade, is exploring ways to break down the barriers that have prevented developing countries from fully accessing the WTO's trade-dispute system to enforce their rights.
Thanks to a generous grant from The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, he will be able to share his findings with the people who matter most -- ambassadors, trade ministers, policy-makers, non-government organizations, and think tanks -- through seminars, workshops, and the publication of a book.
"I'm tremendously grateful to the Hewlett Foundation for funding this project," said Bown, who teaches at the Brandeis International Business School. "The Hewlett Foundation is enlightened, informed, and, in many ways, revolutionary. It sees how this process (the trade dispute system) can be used in a sustainable-development fashion and is putting resources into trying to achieve these goals."
While many studies have looked at the process from the perspective of developed nations, Hewlett was intrigued by Bown's work, which looks at the trade dispute system through the lens of developing countries.
"We see the WTO dispute settlement system as being one of the key drivers for policy reform because it more or less puts developing countries on the same plane as the richer countries," said M. Ann Tutwiler, the managing director for trade and development at the Hewlett Foundation. "Unfortunately, in practice it hasn't worked that way - the system is more user friendly for the developed countries and the developing countries don't fully understand what is at stake."
Bown has pinpointed a number of reasons why the system has not been utilized by developing countries, including the high cost of pursuing the resolution of disputes, fear of political reprisal from developed countries (reduction in aid, for instance), and insufficient support from the private sector.
"People have begun to recognize how the power of WTO can be harnessed to help the poorest people in the poorest countries," Bown said. "There's an important opportunity to use this thing called the WTO dispute settlement to promote economic development. We need to determine how it can be used, why it isn't being used, and what needs to be changed to make it usable for developing countries."
The ultimate goal of Bown's project is to educate developing countries about their potential use of the trade-dispute system to empower and encourage them to participate.
"The dream scenario would be that, based on my work, a government policymaker in a developing country seizes the opportunity to pursue a trade dispute, and the settlement ends up helping improve the standard of living in the country," Bown said.
"We thank the Hewlett Foundation for their generous support of Professor Bown's work, which has the potential to positively impact people around the world," said Nancy Winship, P '10, P '12, senior vice president of institutional advancement at Brandeis. "Partnerships with foundations provide an important mechanism for Brandeis faculty to pursue cutting-edge research on significant issues of the day."
Profile of Professor Bown
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