Asian Free Trade Agreements and WTO Compatibility


Book Description

This book investigates the appropriate relationship between regionalism and multilateralism, with a special reference to recent FTAs in Asia. It is undeniable that past trade multilateralism-regionalism debates centered on the trade-in-goods aspect.




Asian Free Trade Agreements And Wto Compatibility: Goods, Services, Trade Facilitation And Economic Cooperation


Book Description

It is an appropriate time to rethink the relationship between trade regionalism and multilateralism in the Asian context as we witness the proliferation of free trade agreements (FTAs) in Asia. In the 1980s and 1990s, many scholars and policymakers believed that Asian integration was market-based, rather than legal-based, and that Asian integration would never be codified through agreements. Yet today, there are a large number of FTAs signed and under negotiation in Asia.This book investigates the appropriate relationship between regionalism and multilateralism, with a special reference to recent FTAs in Asia. It is undeniable that past trade multilateralism-regionalism debates centered on the trade-in-goods aspect. However, the majority of recent FTAs in Asia cover issues beyond trade-in-goods and tariff liberalization, such as trade facilitation, services, and economic cooperation. While the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) Article XXIV governs regional integration initiatives in trade in goods, there is no (or at most a thin) World Trade Organization (WTO) Agreement that stipulates the relationship between regionalism and multilateralism in issue areas other than goods.Thus, this study carefully considers the meaning of “WTO-compatible FTAs” by distinguishing “WTO consistency” and “WTO friendliness”, going beyond GATT Article XXIV debates and proposes a general framework for examining the openness of regionalism in various issue areas by identifying tree-type questions to distinguish several types of exclusiveness. It then specifically asks the following questions: Can Asian FTAs that cover several issues be considered multilateralism friendly? How does the relationship between regionalism and multilateralism differ between trade-in-goods and non-goods issue areas? What are policies that might reduce the exclusiveness of regional initiatives? The study concludes by listing counterintuitive policy suggestions to make FTAs truly WTO compatible. The book also includes a comprehensive list of FTAs in Asia and several WTO Agreements relating to trade regionalism.




Handbook of Deep Trade Agreements


Book Description

Deep trade agreements (DTAs) cover not just trade but additional policy areas, such as international flows of investment and labor and the protection of intellectual property rights and the environment. Their goal is integration beyond trade or deep integration. These agreements matter for economic development. Their rules influence how countries (and hence, the people and firms that live and operate within them) transact, invest, work, and ultimately, develop. Trade and investment regimes determine the extent of economic integration, competition rules affect economic efficiency, intellectual property rights matter for innovation, and environmental and labor rules contribute to environmental and social outcomes. This Handbook provides the tools and data needed to analyze these new dimensions of integration and to assess the content and consequences of DTAs. The Handbook and the accompanying database are the result of collaboration between experts in different policy areas from academia and other international organizations, including the International Trade Centre (ITC), Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), and World Trade Organization (WTO).










Asian Economic Integration Monitor


Book Description

The Asian Economic Integration Monitor is a semiannual review of Asia's regional economic cooperation and integration. It covers the 48 regional members of the Asian Development Bank. This issue includes two theme chapters: i) Toward an ASEAN Economic Community---and Beyond; and ii) World Trade Facilitation Negotiations---Asian Perspectives.




The Regulation of the Global Water Services Market


Book Description

Drinking water and wastewater services must be provided to many sectors of a nation's economy, including its industrial, commercial, and residential sectors. This forms the scope of the water industry's activities and it explains why the privatization of water sanitation and water services has become a huge market and a much-debated issue in a number of jurisdictions. Historically the water industry has been run as a public service which is owned by the local or national government; however, recent trends suggest that the role of the private sector is increasing. The growing economic interests concerning water and wastewater services are generating a tension with the recent recognition of the human right to water and sanitation. This tension between human right and economic rules is the focus of this book, which reviews all the international rules that form the regulation of global water services.




Sixty Years of European Integration and Global Power Shifts


Book Description

This book focuses on a review of how sixty years of case-law and regulatory activity transformed the European continent and the world. It provides a critical analysis of the key features of EU integration and how this integration is perceived (internally and externally). In this context, this book also explores the EU's interactions with a number of other countries and organisations with the objective of assessing the EU's role in global governance.




International Economic Law


Book Description

This book assesses the past 20 years of development of international economic law in time for the WTO’s 20th Anniversary, and forecasts the future of international economic law. This edited volume brings together experts in the Asia-Pacific region, from a range of backgrounds, to provide perspectives on many issues that arise from the international economic law experience, focusing on its legal significance and likely impact on multilateralism. The past two decades have seen a significant proliferation of regional trade agreements and a lack of multilateral governance of finance around the world. How to respond to these challenges and how to reform the WTO jurisprudence and process to co-ordinate global and regional mechanisms have become compelling questions for large-scale discussions and systemic analysis. This book provides vital insights into just how to improve multilateral trading governance and to recalibrate international economic law in the twenty-first century.




European Economic Integration, Wto Membership, Immigration And Offshoring


Book Description

This volume is a collection of papers that apply general equilibrium theory in order to obtain policy relevant insights on topical issues of international trade and migration. The first set of papers focuses on European integration, applying dynamic numerical general equilibrium methods to quantify the effects of geographic extension of the European Union, including the effects of Eastern enlargement of the EU on incumbent Western member countries. The second set of papers deals with the trade effects of WTO membership, with special focus on the so-called extensive country margin, where new international trading relationships are formed. The third set of papers focuses on immigration, offering a rigorous theoretical analysis of the so-called immigration surplus as well as an econometric estimation of the gains and pain that Germany has forgone by initially restricting immigration from new EU member countries after the EU's Eastern enlargement in 2004. And finally, the book contains a set of theoretical papers on the distributional effects of offshoring.