Proliferation Of Regional Trade Agreements Research Articles

Jurisdictional Conflict Between the World Trade Organization and Regional Trade Agreements: Res Judicata Revisited

This article discusses the long-standing issue of jurisdictional conflict in World Trade Organisation (WTO) jurisprudence, which has, in the recent decades, been exacerbated by the proliferation of Regional Trade Agreements (RTAs). An examination of WTO jurisprudence reveals that jurisdictional conflict stems from the lack of choice of forum clauses in WTO-covered agreements, and the lack of a hierarchy of sources in international law. While there exists legal basis for the application of general principles of international law such as res judicata, a careful analysis demonstrates that there is conceptual difficulty applying the doctrine in the context of WTO disputes. To remedy this, the article argues that the WTO Dispute Settlement Understanding (DSU) could be amended to allow for the operation of res judicata. WTO, res judicata, jurisdiction conflict, regional trade agreements, general principles of law, Dispute Settlement Understanding

Trade Agreements in the Last 20 Years: Retrospect and Prospect for Agriculture

SummaryWe provide an overview of major developments in multi‐ and plurilateral trade agreements over the last twenty years with a focus on the implications for agricultural and food markets. We take stock of what has been accomplished in market integration, remaining obstacles to trade, events that have changed the trade landscape, and emerging issues. Agricultural tariffs have fallen through commitments made in the Uruguay Round Agreement on Agriculture and through the proliferation of regional trade agreements (RTAs). Nevertheless, agricultural trade remains distorted with some extremely high tariffs. RTAs have achieved progress on nontariff measures and other beyond‐the‐border frictions. World Trade Organization (WTO) negotiations on agricultural trade distortions have stalled because of their complexity and divergent political interests among WTO members. In addition, the dispute settlement mechanism no longer functions. The WTO will have to adjust to a world of RTAs and use its tools and procedures to support the multilateral trading system by promoting increased transparency of RTAs and their conformity with existing WTO agreements. The WTO can also use existing tools to head off disputes using specific trade concern mechanisms, such as those implemented through the sanitary and phytosanitary (SPS) and Technical Barriers to Trade (TBT) committees.

Trade liberalization and wage inequality: Evidence from Chile

This study analyzes the impacts of further tariff reductions resulting from the proliferation of regional trade agreements on wage inequality between skilled and unskilled workers in Chile in the 2000s. I match panel data on industry-level effective tariff rates and other industry variables calculated from plant-level microdata to pooled individual cross-section data from national household surveys at the industry level. Based on this unique data set, I estimate the impacts of effective tariffs on workers’ wages directly in one stage. I find that a reduction in effective tariffs on final goods leads to an increase in industry wage and skill premiums. Moreover, the impact on the industry skill premiums is larger for skilled workers employed in large-sized firms. Therefore, the findings indicate that increased import competition due to reductions in output tariffs leads to skill upgrading within industries, thereby increasing demand for skilled workers. The results are robust to the possible endogeneity of effective tariffs and the inclusion of industry-level productivity.

Trade integration in the European Union: Openness, interconnectedness, and distance

This article presents a set of indicators to measure regional trade integration, focusing on the case of the European Union. We propose measures of openness, connectedness and integration which are tuned to evaluate not only how these components contribute to the advance of international integration, but also to control for the potential threat posed by the proliferation of regional trade agreements to trade globalization. Although this and related questions have been examined from several perspectives, the present article explicitly attempts to quantify how regional trade agreements either intensify or thwart trade globalization. Results show that the process of trade integration has intensified among European Union members, whereas integration with non-members is advancing slowly. Our indicators provide a more complete view of the differing speeds of integration, which depend on whether the component of integration considered is openness or connectedness.

The Legacy of Conflict on Trade Negotiations

The world has witnessed an unprecedented proliferation of regional trade agreements (RTAs) since the early 1990s, which has prompted a heated debate among trade economists and policymakers about the implications of RTAs for the multilateral trading system. Besides the standard economic gains from regional integration, RTAs can produce significant political gains for their member countries, chief among which is the reduction in interstate conflict between RTA members (peace-creation effect). Thus, depending on the RTA in question, economic integration and peace solidification can both occupy center stage on the agenda of the prospective RTA partners during the trade negotiations, affecting their duration. It is well known that the duration of negotiations across RTAs differs substantially, but this phenomenon has not received much attention in the literature. In this paper, we explore for the first time the legacy of past conflict on RTA negotiations. Using a unique dataset on the history of formation of a large number of RTAs (Tabakis and Zanardi, 2018) as well as data on conflict from the Correlates of War project and by employing survival analysis techniques, we found that country pairs with history of conflict conclude their trade negotiations relatively faster—1.5 to 2.2 times faster in comparison with country pairs with no history of conflict. The result has implications for firms’ investment decision and the role of politics in RTAs negotiation.

The Role of Customs Administration in Trade Facilitation in Developing Countries. The Case of Southern Africa

The paper seeks to highlight the role played by customs administrators in the facilitation of trade in developing countries. It acknowledges that international trade cannot be avoided and countries need to adapt to the requirements of trade facilitation with reference to the Trade Facilitation Agreement. It seeks to clarify the ‘assumption that facilitating trade leads to loss of revenue and how trade facilitation can reinforce revenue collections at a lower cost. The paper explores further on trade facilitation benefits the private sector have as they seek to trade internationally. With the increase in trade volumes countries through their customs administration requires trade facilitation measures to ensure no non-tariff barriers hinder trade. There is also need to capacitate these customs administration in the adoption of these trade facilitation measures before any policy framework can be implemented at national or regional level. Major reasons put forward for trade facilitation measures are increased trade in finished products by developing countries, globalisation of manufacturing processes, proliferation of regional trade agreements and continued diversification of exports. In summary trade needs to be facilitated if developing countries are to benefit from international trade and the most influential actors are customs administrations. With trade facilitation measures developing countries might even collect more revenue than previously collected before these measures are in place.

Theodore Ahlers & Harinder S. Kohli (eds.), Africa Reset: A New Way Forward

Abstract. The African continent for long has been an enigma for development economists, with several countries witnessing coexistence of rich natural resource base, pockets of underdevelopment and political instability. With the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) as a target, it is now imperative that the African countries, particularly the nations facing development challenges,need to contemplate and adopt a long-term action plan. However, the existing literature suggests that addressing the concerns of African countries requires both structural and regulatory reforms. Given the proliferation of regional trade agreements (RTAs) in the world today, along with deepening of de-globalizing forces, the practical concern for the African countries is to increasingly participate in Global Value Chains (GVCs) and International Production Networks (IPNs), enhance value-addition within the domestic economy, promote equality in opportunitiesand create employment for the growing young population therein. In a sense Africa is at a juncture, where Asia stood several decades back. The volume edited by Ahlers and Kohli, an attempt to analyze the reform and consequently the growth path in Africa, is therefore a timely contribution to the existing literature.. Keywords. Political economy, Economic thought, Politics, Economic system. JEL. B10, L66, Q18.

Effects of Regional Trade Agreements on Strategic Agricultural Trade in Africa and Its Implications to Food Security: Evidence from Gravity Model Estimation

The problems of African agricultural development have been at the forefront of the debate on Africa’s development since the Lagos Plan of Action in 1963. During the 2004 AU meeting in Sirte, Libya and subsequently in the 2006 AU/NEPAD Summit on Food Security in Africa, concrete steps have been taken to work towards Common African Market on 12 selected strategic agricultural products. Eight regional trade agreements which are to form the building blocks of the African Economic Community are engaged in trade liberalization and regional integration process on the selected strategic agricultural products with the ultimate goal being the formation of Common Markets for Agricultural products. However, the recent proliferation of regional trade agreements (RTAs) has intensified the debate on their merits especially the merits of south-south trade agreements. This study contributes to this debate by analysing trade creation and trade diversion effects of African RTAs on trade in nine of the twelve strategic agricultural products. An extended gravity model is estimated. We address econometrically the endogeneity of RTAs using a panel approach. Results indicate that African RTAs have mixed effect on trade creation and trade diversion. Net trade creation is positive in three of the eight RTA and it is negative in two. Although a lot remains to be done, RTAs in Africa are an attractive means to speed up the move towards common market for agricultural products in the continent. This will have positive implication for food security and sustainable agricultural development in the continent.

The Fragmentation of the Multilateral Trading System: The Impact of Regionalism on WTO Law

This is a study of fragmentation of the multilateral trading system through regionalism. It evaluates whether and to what extent regional trade agreements have conflicted with WTO law. The substantive and dispute settlement aspects of conflict are the main focus of this paper. Sections of this paper cover an overview of multilateralism in international trade law, the WTO as a universal regulator of world trade, the proliferation of regional trade agreements, and the general implications of regionalism in trade. The main argument presented is that the proliferation of RTAs gradually erodes the WTO’s core principle of non-discrimination, and consequently impairs the coherence of international trade law.

Counterfeiting and piracy in international trade: the good, the bad and the … oxymoron of ‘real fakes’

The rise of the importance of intellectual property rights (IPRs) at the global level as well as the proliferation of regional trade agreements (RTAs) call for a more careful and more balanced consideration of the debate about the future of the global protection and enforcement of IPRs. Exemplified by the problem of international trade in pirated and counterfeit products, especially in the context of the fashion industry, the present article sets out to identify the major shortcomings of the present regulatory debate. These shortcoming are those of a limited number of stakeholders clearly divided into the 'good' and the 'bad', a stronger interest in negative rather than positive externalities, and, ultimately, a predominantly dualistic conception of intellectual property law in particular and law in general. This dualistic conception will be critically contrasted by a look at several business reports about the creative fashion industry and the introduction of the oxymoronic notion of 'real fakes'. As an oxymoronic concept, the real fake is used to identify a wider linguistic trend in contemporary scientific debates, which may serve as a reminder to complement dualistic reasoning by more paradoxical forms of thinking as well as related regulatory concepts.

WTO Framework on Regional Trade Agreements: A Legal Analysis

The global trading eco-system has seen a rapid proliferation of Regional Trade Agreements(RTAs) in recent years. With the ever increasing expansion of RTAs, countries are now witnessing an intensified competitiveness in world markets. While on the one hand, RTAs are seen as providing much better mechanisms for trading access in foreign countries with inbuilt flexibilities in rule formation and compliance, on the other, it is also said to be subverting the authority of the global trading body i.e. the World Trade Organization. The present article aims to analyse the critical legal bases of proliferating RTAs. To this end, it will offer an examination of the scope of RTAs and the key provisions under the WTO, which support the legal edifice of RTAs.

The Settlement of Trade Disputes

This article examines the question of whether the wto enjoys a monopoly over the settlement of trade disputes by examining the historical context of the Dispute Settlement Understanding of the wto, including early dispute resolution under the gatt and the goal behind the transformation leading to the wto of curbing potential unilateralism within the trade regime. It argues that this culminated in the intention to create a centralized rule-based system for the settlement of disputes, rather than an intention to create a monopoly for the wto. The article examines potential threats to the so-called monopoly, in particular with the proliferation of Regional Trade Agreements (rtas) and the development of Mutually Agreed Solutions (mas). It also addresses relevant case law to demonstrate that the wto does not and was not intended to enjoy a monopoly over trade disputes. Rather, the wto pursues the objective of strengthening the multilateral trading system rather than encouraging unilateral trade action, which would not appear to be undermined by resort to the dispute settlement mechanisms of relevant rtas or other dispute settlement mechanisms.

The Eagle Meets the Dragon—Two Superpowers, Two Mega RTAs, and So Many in Between: Reflections on TPP and RCEP

The proliferation of regional trade agreements (RTAs) in recent decades and the intensifying rivalry among major trading nations has led to the creation of two mega RTAs, namely the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) led by the United States of America and the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) led by China. Due to the importance of market access to these two economic superpowers, seven out of twelve TPP countries are also participating in the negotiations for RCEP, comprising half of the sixteen participating countries. This article discusses the development of these two mega RTAs, introduces their key provisions and approaches, and examines the dynamics and implications for trade that these mega RTAs would create.

Do Trade Agreements Increase Food Trade?

AbstractIn addition to multilateral trade agreements under the World Trade Organization (WTO), the world has seen a remarkable proliferation of regional trade agreements (RTAs) in the last two decades. This study investigates whether these multilateral and regional trade institutions increase food trade and bring the world into a freer flow of food. The gravity model of international trade is used for the empirical analysis. The model is developed in a large panel data setting and attempted to address some potential problems in the estimations including multilateral trade resistances, zero trade values and endogeneity. The results suggest that both the WTO and RTAs have delivered significant positive effects on trade among the participant countries, but not food. Only RTAs are found to have increased food trade among the participant countries. However, although on average the WTO is found to have negative implications on food trade, it facilitates the developing countries more than the developed countries.

Re-constructing Dispute Settlement Mechanism in Trade and Investment Agreements: Key Considerations for the PACER Plus Negotiating Parties

The last few decades have been characterized by a proliferation of Regional Trade Agreements (RTAs) which cover, inter alia, trade in goods, trade in services and investment. Hundreds of these agreements are currently in operation while a significant number are still currently being negotiated. The Pacific Agreement on Closer Economic Relations Plus (PACER Plus) falls under the latter category. While the launching of PACER Plus negotiations has been hailed by contracting parties as a development and integration instruments, the issue of the nature of dispute settlement in a final agreement that will cover both trade and investment has been a polarizing one. Taking inspiration from the World Trade Organization (WTO) dispute settlement system and the dispute settlement system established under the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), this paper will examine the relevance of disputes settlement mechanism in trade and investment agreements. In so doing, it will answer a fundamental question namely whether a single dispute settlement system should be established under PACER Plus or whether it would be necessary to establish a separate mechanism for settling trade disputes and another for investment disputes as is the case under NAFTA owing to the specificities of investment disputes.

Competition provisions in regional trade agreements: The Indian experience

The proliferation of regional trade agreements (RTAs) is one of the defining features of the present day world trading system. This burgeoning of RTAs is accompanied by another process of “deeper integration”. Compared to the older genre of RTAs, the recent RTAs cover a wider range of obligations than those contained within the WTO framework like environmental and labour standards. Among these, competition policy is the most covered topic in recent RTAs. India is not an exception to this trend, and increasingly many Indian RTAs contain provisions relating to competition policy that impose a wide range of obligations on her. Broadly, these RTAs may be classified under three heads: (1) RTAs that contain a separate chapter on competition policy; (2) RTAs that contain obligations with regard to competition policy in the context of the service sector and (3) RTAs that contain competition related objectives. The presence of these provisions in Indian RTAs is intriguing as India was at the forefront of opposing the inclusion of competition policy within the WTO framework. Insistence by the hegemonic partner, reduced negotiating power in the bilateral context, and the give and take policy adopted during the negotiations could be some possible explanations for this change in stand. Undertaking obligations in the field of competition policy may not be in the interest of a developing country like India as it can significantly reduce the crucial industrial policy space.

One size does not fit all

This section is dedicated to the review of ideas, articles, books, films and other media. It includes replies (and rejoinders) to articles, the evaluation of new ideas or proposals, and reviews of books and articles both directly and indirectly related to intellectual property law. Aimed at policy makers and civil society, this collection of essays explores various aspects of intellectual property law and development. With 17 chapters, covering topics such as economics, bioethics, public health, conservation and green innovation, the collection has two principal aims: to analyse the impact of ‘diverse intellectual property (IPR) regimes on the development process’ (p. 1) and to explore ‘policy measures fostering the international diffusion of knowledge, the accumulation of capabilities in catching-up countries and the access by populations in emerging economies of the fruits of technological innovation’ (p. 36). The contributors (with backgrounds in law, economics, bioethics, policy and government) provide perspectives and insights on intellectual property that are not always found in standard, doctrinal legal commentary. Chapter 15, for example, is written by Pedro Roffe and Christoph Spennemann, from the International Centre for Trade and Sustainable Development (ICTSD) and United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), respectively. Drawing on their experiences in international trade, Roffe and Spennemann provide insights about the proliferation of regional trade agreements or, as they refer to them, preferential trade agreements (PTAs). By considering recent trends in PTAs, the authors aim to ‘show the extent and breadth of the novelties introduced by PTAs and how they affect the balance between private rights and public interests’ (pp. 439–40), and expand ‘protection and enforcement measures to new frontiers’ (p. 459). According to the authors, the trend towards PTAs has reduced the public domain, which has far-reaching consequences, including hindering access to, and diffusion of, medicines, genetic resources and information.

Emerging countries and trade regionalization. A network analysis

In this paper, the authors start from the observation of two apparently contradictory trends: the increasing regionalization of trade and the proliferation of regional trade agreements, on the one hand, and the increase of the average number of trading partners of each country and of the trading distances over time due to decreasing transportation and communication costs, on the other, pointing to more globalization. They are brought together to better understand the characteristics of the process of internationalization which is involving so many emerging countries. In particular, by considering the extent of regionalization in trade or the preferentiality of regional trade, as well as the structure of some existing trade agreements in terms of influence of individual countries on intra-regional trade flows, they address the following questions: is internationalization of emerging countries starting at a regional level and eventually evolving to make them global players? Is the growing export strength of many low- or mid-income and size economies due to their linkages to some increasingly important traders in the world market, or is it an autonomous development of their economies? The authors start from a particular specification of bilateral trade intensity indices which allows for measuring revealed trade preferences, overcoming several statistical shortcomings of traditional indicators. They then apply the tools of network analysis, in order to take into account whether local trade structures and preferential agreements affect the overall system of international trade.

Is the growth of regionalism as significant as the headlines suggest? Lessons from agricultural trade

AbstractThe proliferation of regional trade agreements (RTAs) has motivated a significant number of ex post econometric studies investigating their agricultural trade impacts. The general conclusion is that RTAs increase members’ trade by as much as 150%, on average. In this article, we demonstrate that previous empirical work likely misrepresents the impact of RTAs because of considerable heterogeneity in the depth of economic integration pursued by these agreements. Contrary to previous studies, the results reveal that RTAs are not universally trade creating, and some agreements appear to provide very little benefit. “Deep integration agreements,” on the other hand, are largely responsible for the impressive agricultural trade flow increases reported in the literature. Testing the hierarchy of RTAs largely confirms the theory: the benefits of regionalism are an increasing function of the depth of economic integration.

Technical Barriers to Trade Provisions in Regional Trade Agreements

The proliferation of regional trade agreements (“RTAs”) behoves all WTO members to assess the extent to which RTAs depart from fundamental principles in the WTO such as the most-favoured-nation (“MFN”) treatment in the GATT and in particular, the WTO Agreement on Technical Barriers to Trade. This paper focuses on technical barriers to trade (“TBT”) provisions in RTAs concluded by the United States, European Union, Australia and Singapore and finds that these TBT provisions complement the existing disciplines in the TBT Agreement. To the extent that TBT provisions in RTAs may be inconsistent with the TBT Agreement, this paper examines the extent to which they can be justified under Article XXIV of GATT. This paper concludes that the ambiguity of key terms in Article XXIV of GATT allows WTO Members to adopt an expansive interpretation of the scope of Article XXIV of GATT.