"....an ambassador's job is government to government primarily, but it's also to be a commercial diplomat"
Amb. Anthony Harrington
'In many significant offshore financial centres, specialist commercial judges exist where formal specialist courts do not'
The Hon. Justice L. Kawaley
Commercial Judge
Supreme Court,
Bermuda
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Commercial diplomacy is a unique profession that requires advanced specialized training and a formal qualification. Diplomacy designed to influence foreign government policy and regulatory decisions that affect global trade, intellectual property and investment. In the past commercial diplomacy concerned itself largely with negotiations on tariffs and quotas on imports. In today's more interdependent world, trade negotiations cover a far wider range of government regulations and actions affecting international commerce, including standards in health, safety, environment, and consumer protection; regulations in banking, telecommunications and accounting; competition policy and laws concerning bribery and corruption; agricultural support programs, and industrial subsidies. Commercial diplomacy encompasses the whole analysis, advocacy, coalition-building and negotiation chain that leads to international agreements on these trade-related issues.
What Practitioners of Commercial Diplomacy Must Learn
A commercial diplomacy practitioner must learn how to analyze all the factors that have a bearing on the policy decision-making process at home and abroad, including an in-depth analysis of:
- The commercial interests at stake,
- The macro-economic impact of alternative policy options,
- The political influence of all the stakeholders with commercial, policy-oriented or institutional interests,
- The domestic policy issues that may be entwined with the foreign trade issue,
- The applicable domestic and international legal provisions,
- The state of public opinion, and including the impact of media coverage and
- ........many more
Most issues addressed by commercial diplomacy today are political in that they affect the interests of many stakeholders. A stakeholder is anyone who has a stake in the outcome of decisions and who can exercise political influence of one kind or another to shape the outcome. Stakeholders in trade policy decisions can include (a) officials of any government department or regulatory agency with a policy interest or bureaucratic stake; (b) any firm, union, or industry association with a commercial stake; (c) any non-governmental organization with a policy or organizational stake in the outcome: (d) individual citizens as voters. The increased focus in trade negotiations on domestic regulatory issues has substantially increased the potential pool of stakeholders, and thus increased the domestic political dimension of commercial diplomacy.
Advocacy and Coalition Building
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