Regional Free Trade Agreements Research Articles

Trade agreements and tobacco control policy: analysis of the impact of FCTC on regulatory contents of trade agreements from 2001 to 2019

BackgroundThis study aims to analyze the impact of Framework of Convention of Tobacco Control (FCTC) on regulatory contents of trade agreements from 2001 to 2019.MethodsA search of trade agreements from‘WTO Regional Free Trade Agreement Database’ using keywords including “tobacco”, “cigarette”, “smoking” and “FCTC” from May to August 2020 resulted in a total sample of 268 trade agreements, from which 69 trade agreements were coded and analyzed. Provisions in trade agreements, identified via the aforementioned keywords, were categorized into 6 trade measures. The word counts of the provisions containing; FCTC; were calculated. Chi-square tests were applied to analyze the differences of regulatory patterns between different time frames. The import and export values (USD) of tobacco products under trade agreements containing the term “FCTC” were further collected from the “International Trade Statistics 2001–2020” for understanding the impact of the provision on the trade flow.ResultsAmong 69 agreements, the percentage of trade agreements containing keyword as “FCTC” increased significantly from 0% to 2011 to 12% after 2011. A significant decrease of using trade measures as “the exclusion list” was found after 2011 (from 10% to 0). The word counts of provisions containing; FCTC; increased from 24 words in 2011 to 164 words in 2018, and the content of the provisions became more concrete over time. There are six trade agreements containing “FCTC”, and all these 6 agreements were ratified by European Union (EU). Despite EU ratified trade agreements with “FCTC”, the import and export values of tobacco products between EU and the other party countries increased with time. But the gap of average trade values between trade agreements with and without “FCTC” being widened with time.ConclusionsAs a first study evaluated the impact of FCTC on regulatory contents of trade agreements, our study results showed that after countries signed trade agreements containing keyword FCTC, the regulatory contents changed significantly. Further studies are recommended to understand the reason and criteria for incorporating FCTC provisions into trade agreements, especially in the EU.

The CPTPP, cross-strait tensions, and Taiwan’s recognition for survival strategy under the democratic progressive party

Abstract Since coming to power in 2016, the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) has pledged to safeguard Taiwan’s sovereignty amidst Beijing’s aggressive imposition of the one-China principle. This article assesses the impact of the DPP’s recognition for survival strategy which involves using free trade agreements (FTAs) to boost Taiwan’s legal standing and recognition in the international community. The strategy entails a two-pronged plan: retaining Taiwan’s status as a vital regional economic player to ultimately advance its de jure sovereignty via regional FTAs. Drawing on Taiwan’s past FTA experiences, we analyze the possible outcomes of the government’s application to the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP) and the likely consequences of these outcomes on the country’s sovereign claims and status. We argue that while the DPP’s strategy plays a crucial role in renegotiating Taiwan’s political self as an unrecognized state, failure to mitigate the negative externalities of the one-China principle while negotiating and implementing the CPTPP will further undermine the country’s facto sovereignty.

China’s Concerns on the Core Issues of Digital Trade

In the current era of digital trade, more and more regional free trade agreements regulate e-commerce or cross-border flows of data, and the WTO has started plurilateral e-commerce negotiations as well. With the gradual emergence of China’s industrial advantages in the field of cross-border e-commerce, it has increasingly expressed its point of views on digital trade rules on various occasions. China is currently in RCEP and may soon join CPTPP and DEPA. Moreover, China has already put forward its claims in the WTO. However, although China has introduced a lot of laws and regulations in the field of digital law, it still needs to further improve the legal system of outbound data transfer in the future, and China needs to further clarify its position on controversial digital trade issues, striking a balance between data security and data free flow. component; digital trade;cross-border e-commerce; outbound data transfer; cross-border data flow.

Populist Backlash and Trade Agreements in North America: The Prospects for Progressive Trade

Populist rejection of the embedded liberal international order is evident in many Western democracies. This is partly attributable to the architects of this system, who over-promised widespread benefits while ignoring warnings from labour and fair-trade advocates about risks to economic security from transnational economic competition. This article contrasts Canadian and American conservative populist positions on free trade. Globalisation and free trade without consideration for fair trade weakened the embedded liberal compromise and undermined the Keynesian welfare state model which sustained it. While regional free trade agreements like the North American Free Trade Agreement have had marginal negative effects, they became convenient scapegoats in a strategy of “othering” adopted by Trump and other populists. Populism arose in part in response to middle- and working-class decline (alongside cultural changes and revitalised nativism), which eroded support for embedded liberalism. The heretofore pro-trade GOP followed Trump to a more protectionist and bilateral model to press for “America first,” tinged by nativist othering towards Mexico and China. This diverged from Canadian right-populist leaders, whose rhetoric generally supports freer trade despite scepticism among some supporters. Asymmetrical circumstances of the US as a global economic hegemon vs. Canada as trade-dependent middle power limits the feasibility of a protectionist, “Canada first” position while particularities of political and electoral systems create more room for nativism in the US. Polling results indicate support for free trade in both nations, with a priority for labour and social protections, which provides the potential for further engagement in progressive trade liberalisation. Hence a significant percentage of the population supports “fair-trade” approaches, not protectionism. However, many conservative politicians eschew fair-trade positions and endorse anti-labour policies. Despite gains such as the labour provisions in the Canada–US–Mexico Agreement, a right-populist alliance with fair-trade advocates and labour unions is unsustainable and would entail compromises like climate denial, anti-immigrant, and anti-equity approaches which hinder the pursuit of progressive multilateral trading regimes.

International Trade Agreements: Laboratories of Innovation or Propellers of Fragmentation?

ABSTRACT The original ‘building blocks or stumbling blocks’ debate considered the positive and negative impacts on the multilateral trading system in the form of the World Trade Organization (WTO) of free trade agreements (FTAs) at a time when FTAs were primarily bilateral and/or regional. This article recasts the debate in light of modern realities. Since the collapse of the Doha Round, WTO Members have increasingly formed FTAs with more than one large economy; plurilateral as well as bilateral groupings; and agreements including WTO-plus commitments. Further, Members have pursued plurilateral subject-specific negotiations both outside the WTO such as the Trade in Services Agreement and within, in the form of Joint Statement Initiatives. The article assesses from General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade formation to the present the extent to which the full range of trade agreements have facilitated experimentation and to which such agreements have had a fragmenting impact on the WTO. While the answers to these questions are nuanced, what is clear is that Members who wish to liberalize more deeply than other Members will find a way to do so outside the WTO rather than abandoning their objectives. As such, the debate today is no longer whether bilateral or regional FTAs are good or bad for a single undertaking-based multilateral WTO. Instead, we must weigh whether it is preferable for new plurilateral initiatives to be accommodated within the WTO at the expense of strict consensus or to reject such initiatives with the understanding that powerful Members will instead to pursue their objectives in plurilateral arrangements outside the WTO.

A CGE-ML Approach to Analysing India’s Free Trade Agreements

India has set an ambitious export target of US$0.5 trillion by 2025 and US$1 trillion by 2030 from US$291 billion in 2021 as part of its Atmanirbhar Bharat campaign. Since India opened up its economy in 1991, India has concluded several bilateral and regional free trade agreements. India signed a Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA) with the United Arab Emirates in February 2022 and Economic Cooperation and Trade Agreement (ECTA) with Australia in April 2022. India is in the process of concluding trade agreements with the UK, the European Union, Canada, Israel and GCC countries. This article estimates the impact of all the above mentioned FTAs on India’s GDP and its components with an increased emphasis on its exports using a computable general equilibrium framework and machine learning techniques. The analysis estimates that the FTAs will boost India’s GDP by 4.10% to add US$109.096 billion in 2030 and the exports increase by 16.73% or US$46.08 billion. The exports from India to UAE, Australia, UK, European Union, Canada, Israel and GCC countries are estimated to increase by US$67.312 billion by 2030. This increase is relatively higher than the increase in aggregate exports of India suggesting a trade diversion from countries that are not part of the FTAs toward the seven countries with which India is anticipated to sign an FTA.

The Changes and Impact of China’s Tariff Concession Policy in the Context of the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement

The COVID-19 outbreak and the Russia-Ukraine conflict are significant economic challenges for China. Meanwhile, the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (RCEP) entered into force on 1 January 2022, establishing the world’s largest free trade zone with the world’s largest population, the most diverse mix of members, and the highest development potential for reviving China’s economy. The RCEP’s second chapter goes beyond current global and regional free trade agreements, stipulating tariff reductions and their methods, which have had a noticeable impact on member countries’ imports and exports. This study investigates the impact of RCEP tariff concessions on China’s imports and exports, as well as industry development, by examining the various types of tariff concessions and tax cuts available.

ИНДИЙСКО-ТАИЛАНДСКИЕ ТОРГОВЫЕ ОТНОШЕНИЯ: ВЗГЛЯД ИЗ ИНДИИ

Neighboring countries India and Thailand, different in territory, population and GDP, are not the main partners for each other in mutual trade, only 1.5–3.1% in the total exports of each of them. However, both countries consider it important to develop trade with their neighboring countries and see mutual interests in many of its positions. India has signed common free trade agreement with ASEAN and regional free trade agreement with Thailand. The article presents an analysis of the development of exports / imports of India and Thailand in 2011-2021, the main commodity flows are presented. The article also noted the aspects of export/import of commercial services representing almost half of the volume of foreign trade are considered, also noted the rapidly expanding e-commerce in volume.

LABOUR STANDARDS AND INTERNATIONAL TRADE REGULATION – A NEW ERA OF ENFORCEMENT?

Although the ILO has been in existence for over a century, it is not equipped with international mechanisms for enforcement of the labour standards that it promotes. Globalization and trade liberalization have exposed a strong relationship between labour rights and trade regulation, leading to attempts to regulate labour provisions in a trade context, initially through the WTO and, more recently, through labour clauses in bilateral and regional free trade agreements (FTAs). This contribution provides a historical overview of these attempts and presents most recent developments, which reflect a new policy of the United States and the European Union to use their FTAs as a stronger instrument of labour standards enforcement.

Research on Global Grain Trade Network Pattern and Its Driving Factors

Trading systems are essential in promoting global food security. With the growing proportion of global food consumption obtained through international trade, the global food trade pattern has become increasingly complex over recent years. This study constructed a weighted global grain network using the trade data of 196 countries in 2000 and 2018 to explore the structure and evolution based on the complex network theory. We established that the global grain network was scale-free. There was significant heterogeneity among nodes, and the heterogeneity of the out-degree was greater than that of the in-degree. The global grain network has a significant core-periphery structure, with the United States, Japan, Mexico, Egypt, South Korea, and Colombia as the core countries. Thereafter, by applying the quadratic assignment procedure model to explore the driving factors of the global grain network, we established that geographical distance had a positive impact on the food trade patterns in 2000 and 2018. This differs from the classical gravity model theory. Furthermore, grain trade had significant “boundary effects”; economic gaps, resource endowment, and regional free trade agreements had a positive impact on the evolution of the grain trade network, whereas cultural similarity and political differences had a negative impact on the grain trade network pattern.

Trade liberalization and income inequality: The case for Pakistan

Trade liberalization policies have been adopted by many developing countries to increase economic growth and reduce poverty. While the positive relationship between trade liberalization and economic growth is generally well accepted, the impact of trade liberalization on poverty and income inequality is still unclear. The objective of this paper is to use real data and real trade agreements of the state of Pakistan, to examine the predictions made by trade models about the impact of trade liberalization on income inequality. To illustrate, the impacts of several alternative bilateral and regional free trade agreements are simulated on household income and income inequality in Pakistan. The results show that trade liberalization does not always lead to a decline in income inequality in the short run. Trade agreements that do improve income equality, favor agriculture and often hinge on a decline in urban and non-farm household income. In the long run, changes in income equality are more positive, suggesting that efforts might best be applied towards improving the mobility of labor and capital.

Reforming specialized inspection procedures to improve business environment in vietnam for trade facilitation implementation

our study aims to analyze and assess the process of reforming the specialized inspection procedures in Vietnam which is included in Vietnam’s trade facilitation implementation program, and suggesting some recommendations for Vietnam to do the reform to improve business environment and enhance Vietnam’s national competitiveness. By synthesizing and analyzing secondary data from creditable sources such as World Bank, UNESCAPE, UNCTAD, WTO, VCCI, General Department of Vietnam Customs, as well as interviewing officials from Ministry of Industry and Trade of Socialist Republic of Vietnam, etc. Ha and Lan (2021) stated Economic regulatory reform in Vietnam started in the early 1990s and accelerated when the country shifted its focus to economic integration policy by acceding to the World Trade Organization (WTO) in 1995 and engaging in regional free trade agreements in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN).After analyzing and assessing the real situation of Vietnam’s trade facilitation and specialized inspection reforms, this paper would like to suggest some recommendations to continuously implement specialized inspection reforms, implement trade facilitation, improve Vietnam’s business environment and enhance Vietnam’s national competitiveness.

The ‘Flexibility’ Standard in the African Union and Its Ramification for the Implementation of the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) Agreement

African Union’s (AU’s) integration history indicates that the continental body is plagued by flexibility hindering its goal of continental unity. This article investigates the utility of ‘flexibility’ standard in the adoption, ratification, and the implementation of AU treaties. Through an empirical analysis of the seventy treaties currently in force at the AU, thirty-four treaties have been able to secure the minimum level of ratification. Results show that a treaty that lacks the required number of signatories and ratifications creates a big challenge for the continental body. On the other hand, treaty ratification is not a guarantee for successful implementation. Historically, differing views on AU’s role, goals and effect on regional stability has forced a gravitational pull on the essence of the body. Yet, AU continues to facilitate regional free trade agreements and customs union. One of these is the recent African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) Agreement. This article argues that achieving flexibility under AfCFTA is illusionary, hence AU should strive towards attaining a clear roadmap for flexibility milieu in the implementation of AfCFTA. We argue that, for AfCFTA to be effective, all AU Member States must ratify the agreement, thereby ensuring the harmonization of regional trade agreements, and elimination of tariff and non-tariff barriers. The article concludes that the AU must utilize the principle of variable geometry to have a differentiated level and speed of integration, still achieving the same objective of a unified continent towards maximum intra-trade realization. flexibility, African Union, AfCFTA, variable geometry, regional integration, trade barriers, and trade liberalization

FTA, Exchange rate pass‐through and export price behavior – Lessons from the Australian dairy sector

The growing number of bilateral and regional free trade agreements (FTAs) alongside exchange rate volatility has raised a question on whether these affect exporters’ pricing behaviors, hence competitiveness. This study contributes to this topic by examining Australian dairy export price behavior across eight major markets taking into account the extent of pass‐through of exchange rate and tariff as well as FTAs between Australia and its trading partners. Commodity‐level dairy trade data from 1996 to 2016 and the feasible generalized least squares methods are employed. The study finds incomplete pass‐through at the industry level. The dairy export prices decrease by 1.7% if Australian dollar depreciates by 10%, while 10% tariff reduction is associated with 0.7% export price cut. Results at the commodity level show different pricing behaviors across destination and commodity markets. Overall, apart from the tariff effects, there is minimal evidence of the impacts of FTAs on dairy export prices.

The Private Sector in Japan’s State-Led Liberal Strategy

The Private Sector in Japan’s State-Led Liberal Strategy Kristin Vekasi (bio) When Donald Trump won the 2016 presidential election, it was immediately evident that Japan’s already difficult regional choices would become even more fraught. As China’s economic and political power has surged over the past three decades, Japan has had to make difficult choices about balancing between coordinating with a close neighbor and cooperating with its powerful security ally. Saori Katada’s book Japan’s New Regional Reality: Geoeconomic Strategy in the Asia-Pacific is an important contribution to understanding Japan’s navigation of its geoeconomic situation. Many scholars emphasize deepening the U.S.-Japan alliance as key to Japan’s future stability and prosperity,1 or have found that Japan has deepened security ties in order to keep the United States in the region and hedge against China’s rise.2 Katada makes an important new contribution to this discussion, showing how Japan’s “state-led liberal strategy” has opened up new political space for the country to achieve its interests (introduction and chapter 1). She provides important nuance to our understanding of Japan’s geoeconomic strategy, particularly with evidence suggesting that it could be a “pivotal state” in the region. Japan’s maneuvers within the U.S.-China nexus are particularly evident in trade policy. Over the past decade, the two major attempts at regional integration have been the U.S.-led Trans-Pacific Partnership, which excluded China, and the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership, which excludes the United States. Japan’s role in both of these efforts demonstrates the characteristics of the state-led liberal strategy: regional integration, promotion of rules and standards, and formal institution building. Katada argues that while Japan overall leans toward the United States, its state-led liberal strategy has also allowed Japan to influence the direction of Chinese regional policy by guiding the types of rules, standards, and institutions [End Page 139] that have started to characterize Asian regional economic partnerships. One of the strengths of the book is that it gives Japan more agency and credit for its regional policy and places its strategy in an interesting domestic political economy story about new and “disembedded” relationships between the Japanese government and business. As all good pieces of scholarship do, this book introduces important new avenues of research. The voices and roles of the private sector are somewhat muted in the text. In the chapter on trade strategy, for example, Katada argues that the state, rather than the economic interests of the private sector, are driving Japan’s regional free trade agreement (FTA) strategy—a point of departure from the more integrated and bilateral strategy of the country in the past. She offers two points of evidence that are worth further interrogation as they provide additional insight into Japan’s strategy: a low FTA utilization rate and a seeming lack of eagerness to swiftly negotiate an FTA with China, despite early desire to do so from the business community (chapter 5). FTAs often have low utilization rates, in part because many are “cut and paste” agreements rather than completely novel texts. They try to cover a broad swath of industries in the context of ongoing negotiations, even if those industries are not key in that specific bilateral economic relationship. A UN Conference on Trade and Development report found that European Union FTAs have comparatively high utilization rates, with the amount of actual trade covered ranging from 40% to an astounding 90%. However, this does not reflect the actual number of companies utilizing the agreement, which analysts hypothesize is likely low, with small and medium-sized firms not taking advantage of new trade opportunities.3 Similarly, with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) the smaller firms that make up the majority of the Southeast Asian economies rarely utilize FTAs.4 All of this is to say that the low utilization rates by Japanese firms of the freshly negotiated agreements does not necessarily indicate passivity or a lack of representation of their interests at the table. Most-favored-nation rates in Asia are already low, and so the benefits of newly negotiated trade agreements often take time to surface...

International Investment Agreements and Investor-State Arbitration in Asia

States across Asia have long engaged in international investment treaty making, and to a lesser extent in investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) proceedings. Engagement has intensified partly as bilateral investment treaties (BITs) proliferated especially from the 1990s, but also Asian states started to conclude more comprehensive bilateral and then regional free trade agreements (FTAs), including within and with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). Some nations have been more cautious historically, and recent experiences with ISDS claims have led Indonesia and especially India to terminate many old BITs and press out in new directions. This paper details Asia’s trajectory towards becoming more of a “law maker” by focusing on multilateral initiatives (through soft and hard law), ASEAN and its key member states, China and the “Belt and Road” initiative, India, Japan and Korea, Australia and New Zealand.

Regional Free Trade Agreement as the form of ‘New Regionalism’ in Asia Pacific: Geo-Politic and Geo-Economic Aspect of ASEAN Centrality

Regional Free Trade Agreement as the form of ‘New Regionalism’ in Asia Pacific: Geo-Politic and Geo-Economic Aspect of ASEAN Centrality

THE LONG-RUN IMPACT OF ENERGY USE, INCOME AND TRADE ON CARBON DIOXIDE EMISSIONS IN MERCOSUR MEMBER STATES

Using a heterogeneous panel cointegration analysis, this study examines the long-run impacts of income, trade, and energy use on carbon dioxide emissions (CO2), in Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay between 1970 − 2008. Results show that the long-run impact of those factors on CO2 emissions; particularly trade, changed following the establishment of the Mercosur regional free trade agreement in 1991. The results also suggest that increasing the level of openness, after removing barriers to trade and encouraging investments in transportation infrastructure, created positive effects in the reduction of CO2 emissions post-Mercosur. Our findings indicate that the enhancement and increase in utilization of the region’s inland waterway system could shift the Mercosur’s transport matrix towards more economical transportation modes that generates positive effects on the environment.

The Problem with Public Morals

Abstract Empirical study reveals that the methods employed for identifying public morals and societal values in international dispute settlement seldom capture them directly. Rather what we see are governmentally mediated representations of these morals and values. Accepting such representations masks diversity in moral views and societal values within populations, assumes that governments properly represent populations on matters of conscience, and may endorse the characterization of social policies as an embodiment of public morality even where they are in tension with accepted human rights. The underlying difficulty appears to be that public morals defences entered international economic law at a time predating the current highly legalized dispute settlement processes with which we are now familiar, and that they are unsuited by nature to international adjudication in its present form. Contrastingly, the idea of legitimate public policy objectives featuring in certain recently negotiated regional free trade agreements poses fewer concerns of this nature.

Canada’s Supply Management System and the Dairy Industry in the Era of Trade Liberalization: A Cultural Commodity?

ABSTRACTCanada’s dairy farmers have spent the last 40 years fighting to preserve their supply management system despite increases in the desire to liberalize trade through the expansion of regional free trade agreements and the targeting of agriculture in recent rounds of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT). How has Canada’s supply management system resisted trade liberalization thus far? Moreover, what strategies have Canadian dairy farmers used to lobby the government to preserve this system? The answer to these questions lay within the intersection of culture and economics. Canadian dairy farmers have been successful in framing Canadian dairy as a distinctly Canadian cultural commodity, and therefore framing supply management as the economic tool needed to defend this cultural commodity. In exploring this topic, this article will touch on Canada’s history of preserving cultural institutions, as well as the historical importance of Canada’s supply management system.