Post Brexit and the Crisis of Trade Multilateralism: Heartbreak or Mess? Ought We Be Worried? Conference Draft

Abstract

For most experts the crisis paralyzing trade multilateralism is way down everyone’s to-do list or at least so it seems. But that is far from the whole story because trade multilateralism today is about third-generation big tent trade agreements embodying the invasive presence of global neoliberalism to reach behind borders of states and challenge the sovereignty of governments. For European and Canadian citizens these megadeals are in the crosshairs of threatened citizens worried about their employment prospects, food security, the environment, intellectual property rights, the costs of generic drugs and most importantly the growing specter of investment protectionism. Investor protectionism has been around for a long time but the state investor dispute mechanism in both these trade agreements – to a degree that did not exist previously under the GATT System – now gives global corporations the legal right to sue governments on narrow commercial grounds. Governments increasingly are unable to control the trade governance agenda and the election of Trump has created new instability and uncertainty about the future of trade multilateralism, particularly with regards to NAFTA and other agreements.