Regional trade agreements
Regional Trade Agreements and the Multilateral Trading System
The book contains a collection of studies examining trade- related issues negotiated in regional trade agreements (RTAs) and how RTAs are related to the WTO’s rules. While previous work has focused on subsets of RTAs these studies are based on what is probably the largest dataset used to date and highlight key issues that have been negotiated in all RTAs notified to the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) and the World Trade Organization (WTO). New rules within RTAs are compared to rules agreed upon by WTO members. The extent of their divergences and the potential implications for parties to RTAs as well as for WTO members that are not parties to RTAs are examined. This volume makes an important contribution to the current debate on the role of the WTO in regulating international trade and how WTO rules relate to new rules being developed by RTAs.
Acknowledgements
Acknowledgements are due to all the data providers mostly national administrations or WTO delegations who have made this information available including through notifications presented in Technical Annex A. In a number of cases data has been made available on national websites or through regional organizations. Given the vast amount of statistical data and metadata that needed to be processed and because this information is not available in one single organization this publication was only possible as a joint effort of the WTO ITC and UNCTAD. Each of the three organizations has a proven track record and comparative strengths in the field of tariff analysis.