Posts tagged ‘building blocks’
Regional trade agreements, neither building blocks nor stumbling blocks: dismantling a tired dichotomy
The proliferation of regional trade agreements (RTAs) has continued unabated since the early 1990s.[1] In December 2008, the World Trade Organization (WTO) had been notified of 421 RTAs.[2] “There is a serious and long-lived tension between seeking freer trade in a non-discriminatory manner through the [General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade] 1994 and the other WTO Agreements, and by way of regional trade agreements,” observes Professor John H. Jackson.[3]
In the eyes of many, regionalism and multilateralism stand stubbornly pitted against one another, despite implicit recognition of the “desirability” of RTAs in Art. XXIV:4 of the 1947 version of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT).[4]
Since the establishment of the Committee on Regional Trade Agreements (CRTA) in 1996, the WTO has scrambled to find ways to effectively control the impact of RTAs. This futile mission to tighten RTA regulation has been driven by a persistent fear of trade diversion, as well as by the assumption that regionalism—and the agreements springing from it—is subordinate to the multilateral regime.
WTO regulation of RTAs has evolved since 1947, notably with the introduction of the 1994 Understanding on the Interpretation of Article XXIV of the GATT 1994 and the creation of the Transparency Mechanism for RTAs in 2006. These regulations remain however, narrow and ambiguous. Article XXIV thus continues its long history of…
