Regional Rules in the Global Trading System

✍ Scribed by Antoni Estevadeordal (editor), Kati Suominen (editor), Robert Teh (editor)

• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Year: 2009
• Tongue: English
• Leaves: 538
• Edition: 1
• Category: Library

✦ Synopsis

The proliferation of regional trade agreements (RTAs) over the past two decades has highlighted the need to look closely at the potential conflicts between regional and WTO rules or disciplines. A major obstacle to advancing understanding of RTAs is the absence of detailed information about their contents. This has limited the debate between those who view RTAs as discriminatory instruments hostage to protectionist interests and those who see them as conducive to multilateral trade opening. This book provides detailed analysis of RTA rules in six key areas - market access, technical barriers to trade, contingent protection, investment, services and competition policy - across dozens of the main RTAs in the world. The analysis helps to provide new insights into the interplay between regional and multilateral trade rules, advances understanding of the economic effects of RTAs and contributes to the discussion on how to deal with the burgeoning number of RTAs.

✦ Table of Contents

Cover......Page 1
Frontmatter......Page 2
Contents......Page 8
List of figures......Page 9
List of tables......Page 11
List of Contributors......Page 13
Foreword......Page 14
Acknowledgements......Page 17
List of abbreviations......Page 18
1 - Introduction......Page 22
2 - Big-Think Regionalism: a critical survey......Page 38
3 - Market access provisions in regional trade agreements......Page 117
4 - Trade remedy provisions in regional trade agreements......Page 186
5 - A mapping of regional rules on technical barriers to trade......Page 270
6 - Services liberalization in the new generation of preferential trade agreements: how much further than the GATS?......Page 336
7 - Mapping investment provisions in regional trade agreements: towards an international investment regime?......Page 384
8 - Competition provisions in regional trade agreements......Page 437
Appendix: List of RTAs included in the survey......Page 511
Index......Page 522