The Obstacles to Concluding the EU-Canada Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement and Lessons for the Future

Abstract

This article examines three issues arising out of the EU-Canada Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement and puts forward suggestions as to how they may be avoided in future EU agreements. The three issues are the participation of EU Member States as parties to such agreements (‘mixity’), the goal of regulatory convergence and the provision of an investor-state dispute resolution mechanism. The article argues that in future EU Member States should not be included as parties to trade agreements and that issues which the EU Member States do not want to allow the Union to include in such an agreement be placed in a separate mixed agreement. On regulatory convergence, it is suggested that such a goal can only realistically be pursued in multilateral agreements and that including such provisions in bilateral agreements is unrealistic and leads to unnecessary complication and opposition. Finally, the article argues that the whole issue of private enforcement of trade agreements needs to be re-thought and that the provision of favourable treatment to foreign investors only is legally problematic.