of their own trade-related policies. It treats greater self-transparency as a ‘poor’ outcome rather than a virtue; if sensible economic reform is to be implemented the problem of existing policies must be exposed domestically. It was hoped that periodic TPRM reviews would help change Members’ attitudes but this has not occurred. The TPRM meets the fewest criteria for good transparency (Stoeckel and Fisher, 2008). TPRs contain no economic analysis, especially economy-wide analysis. The independent Secretariat report contains substantial input from trade departments of the Member under review which has the incentive to defend its policies. The TPRM has had no substantial impact on better trade policies, largely due to it not evaluating the effects of the Member’s trade policies on its national interest (Stoeckel and Fisher, 2008).
The TPRM has to be re-invigorated to be more effective. It suffers from deficiencies and has become a routine institutional review that is tired and stale. Hence, while still worthwhile, it needs to be refreshed.
4.2
Domestic transparency the main ingredient for promoting unilateralism and an effective WTO
Regardless of international transparency, advancing better trade policies requires shifting the emphasis to domestic processes; this will always be more influential in shifting the political economy of reform than external scrutiny (Stoeckel and Fisher, 2008). The Australian Productivity Commission is the outstanding example internationally of good domestic policy transparency and comes closest to applying all the key elements of good transparency.
Since protectionism results from government decisions at home, for domestic reasons, any response to protectionism must begin at home and bring into public view the domestic consequences of those decisions. Domestic transparency arrangements provide public advice about the economy-wide costs of domestic 188