Acuerdos comerciales regionales
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Regional Rules in the Global Trading System
The proliferation of regional trade agreements (RTAs) over the past two decades has highlighted the need to look closely at the relationships 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.
Mapping investment provisions in regional trade agreements: towards an international investment regime?
As stated in the introduction to this volume, regional trade agreements (RTAs) have been essential not simply in connecting countries through increased trade and investment flows but also in terms of shaping and pushing forward the architecture for conducting international trade. This is certainly true in the area of investment, an area in which the multilateral regime is still rather rudimentary, and where incipient international disciplines have rather been forged de facto at the bilateral and regional level.
Services rules in regional trade agreements: how diverse or creative are they compared to the multilateral rules?
Services trade represents about one- fifth of world trade as measured by the balance of payments and about one- third based on commercial presence/ establishment. Services have not escaped the recent flurry of regional trade agreements (RTAs), but as a relatively new subject in the trade negotiations arena, they have been less affected by this trend than trade in goods. As of December 2014 there were 122 RTAs with a services component that had been notified to the WTO, compared with 235 agreements with a goods component. The growing importance of RTAs in services raises questions about the rules on services in these agreements and this chapter tries to answer two somewhat provocative questions.
Regional trade agreements: Recent developments
Regional trade agreements (RTAs) have increased rapidly in recent years and have become a key feature of trade policy for all WTO members. As at 15 October 2015, 265 RTAs had been notified to the WTO and were in force; the estimate is that around a hundred RTAs are in force but have not been notified to the WTO, and that an equal number are currently being negotiated . In addition to increasing in number, modern RTAs are becoming more sophisticated in their content and coverage. Not only do most include market access commitments in goods and services, as well as accompanying provisions on rules of origin, trade remedies (anti-dumping, countervailing and safeguards), but, increasingly, provisions on investment, intellectual property rights, competition and labour and environment, are found in many RTAs notified to the WTO in recent years.