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China, the world's top wheat and rice consumer, will issue the same tariff import quotas for grains and cottons in the year 2014 as they did in 2013. The wheat import quotas are at 9.6 million tones, corn at 7.2 million tones, rice at 5.3 million tones, and cotton at 894,000 tones. The low tariff-rate is 1 percent while grains imported without the quota allocation would be charged a 65 percent import duty.The tariff import quotas is imposed in the hope to help chinese farmers and to also levy high import duties on agriculture products. However, due to its agreement with World Trade Organization, China is still obliged to allow imports with lower duties. This article clearly connects to the topic of protectionism. Here, the Chinese government hopes to help its domestic agriculture industry by limiting imports. This imposition of quotas will lower the imports which would increase the amount of local production, therefore increasing more revenue for the domestic producers. Here, we can also see the role of WTO arranging trade among countries. Here the obligations create equality between China market and its import countries.

The tuna stocks around the world are being fish out an alarming rate, to fast for the tuna to reproduce and keep there numbers constant. This constant battle between the supply of the fish and the demand for them in Japan (75% of the tuna market) is devastating the tuna populations. The U.E. and other organzations have been trying to put quatos on the catcing of tuna but are being ignored by the fisheries and the tuna stocks are being continually fished. In a matter of years there will be no tuna to fish. As you can see this a problem of supply(where there aren't enought tuna) and demand(which is greater than the supply).

This article describes how the tuna stocks, around the world, are being fished out at an alarming rate. Too fast for them to recover naturally. Demand for tuna far exceeds the supply (what the sea can produce) without disturbing the natural order. So the WWF & ISSF have tried putting quotas but no one is obiding and the overall catch of tuna each year is increasing...

The ocean is one example of a common access ground. It's not exactly owned by anyone. The ocean is being explored more and more everyday. One way is through fisheries. The rapid increase in demand for fishes has led to the sudden decline of the fish populations. Take Bluefin tuna as an example. The increase in demand for tuna sushi has led to a huge depletion worldwide for the past 15 years. This has also led to an increase in price as the populations are becoming more rare. A Bluefin tuna once sold for more than £1m at a Tokyo auction. It is said that most of the tuna caught are shipped to Japan for consumption. Since the ocean has international access, coming up with regulations need to be communicated among many countries. 48 member nations of International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic came out and voted to maintain strict catch quotas. This relates to the tragedy of the common. Anyone can access the ocean and catch as much fishes as they like. They only take into account the money they can gain from catching more tunas. This shows a lack of consideration of the generation where some are only concerned about themselves. Without strict regulations, the population of tunas may become extinct in the near future.

It is a very interesting article because many people doesn´t know about the problem with the fish population. We are depleting all the oceans and we don´t think about the consequence of our acts. The problem is that we are really selfish because no one care about the future generation. We will leave them a completely depleted world (this idea is very present in the film Avatar) However it is very difficult to control the people from capturing too many or too small fishes or other animals. It is a tragedy of commons because it is the depletion of a shared resource by individuals, acting independently and rationally according to each one's self-interest, despite their understanding that depleting the common resource is contrary to the group's long-term best interests.

This is a perfect example of how protectionism policies are put to effect. This article talks about how protectionism policies in the EU have to increase in order to protect the fragile recovering economies. It states that there were about 150 new protectionism policies introduced last year nad 18 measures have been dismantilled. "All of us need to stick to our pledge to fight back against protectionism. It is worrisome to see so many restrictive measures still being adopted and virtually none abolished," said EU Trade Commissioner Karel De Gucht. Trade protectionism was also an important point raised in the G20 Summit taking place in Saint Petersburg on 5 and 6 September 2013.