Multilateralizing Regionalism: Challenges for the Global Trading System

by Edited by Richard Baldwin , Patrick Low

• ISBN13: 9780521738101
• ISBN10: 0521738105
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2009-03-23
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Summary

Regional trade agreements (RTAs) have proliferated around the world in the past two decades, and now nearly all members of the WTO are party to at least one. Besides tariffs and rules of origin regulating trade in goods, many RTAs now include provisions on services, investments, technical barriers to trade and competition rules, as well as a host of issues not directly related to trade. The geographic reach of RTAs is expanding, with transcontinental agreements spreading forcefully alongside intra-regional agreements. 'Multilateralizing Regionalism' was the title of a major conference held from 10-12 September 2007 at the WTO in Geneva. Brought together in this publication, the conference papers achieve two things. First, they marshall detailed, new empirical work on the nature of the 'Spaghetti Bowl' and the problems it poses for the multilateral trade system. Second, they contribute fresh and creative thinking on how to 'tame the tangle' of regional trade agreements.

Table of Contents

List of contributors	p. viii
Foreword	p. xi
Acknowledgements	p. xiv
Introduction	p. 1
Background to Regionalism	p. 11
A historical perspective on regionalism	p. 13
The landscape of regional trade agreement and WTO surveillance	p. 28
Multilateralization: Prospects and Past Experience	p. 77
Beyond tariffs: multilateralizing non-tariff RTA commitments	p. 79
Comment	p. 142
Multilateralizing regionalism: lessons from the EU experience in relaxing rules of origin	p. 146
The Information Technology Agreement: sui generis or model stepping stone?	p. 182
Comment	p. 217
Multilateralization: Sectors and Themes	p. 219
Services provisions in regional trade agreements: stumbling blocks or building blocks for multilateral liberalization?	p. 221
Harmonizing preferential rules of origin regimes around the world	p. 262
Comment	p. 364
Legal avenues to 'multilateralizing regionalism': beyond Article XXIV	p. 368
Multilateralization: Regional Perspectives	p. 401
Multilateralizing regionalism: case study of African regionalism	p. 403
Multilateralizing RTAs in the Americas: state of play and ways forward	p. 427
Comment	p. 492
Multilateralizing regional trade arrangements in Asia	p. 495
Comment	p. 550
Fitting Asia-Pacific agreements into the WTO system	p. 554
Multilateralizing preferential trade agreements: a developing country perspective	p. 636
Comment	p. 681
The challenge of negotiating RTAs for developing countries. What could the WTO do to help?	p. 684
Comment	p. 705
Index	p. 708
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