Menkes Regulatory Cooperation under TTIP [in:] E. Czarny, A. Kuźnar, J. Menkes (eds.), The Impact of the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership on International Cooperation, Peter Lang, Frankfurt am Main 2017, pp. 55-63 (original) (raw)
Related papers
Regulatory Cooperation Under TTIP. If You Can Read This, You’re Too Close.
E. Czarny, A. Kuźnar, J. Menkes (eds.), The Impact of the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership on International Cooperation, Peter Lang, Frankfurt am Main 2017, pp. 55-63., 2017
One of the paradoxes of economic globalisation is that ever closer economic ties mean that any significant global agreement would fundamentally reshape the entire picture, which renders highly desired agreements difficult to reach. As a result, regionalisation of trade and investment agreements increases transaction costs business, hence the need for regulatory convergence. The easiest, and perhaps the most democratic, way would be to adopt a quasi-universal agreement, where at least all the states could voice their concerns. Although the easiest route does not appear available any soon, it does not mean that we are doomed to regulatory havoc. There are at least two alternatives: the trickle-up or the trickledown process. Tha latter could be the case of the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP), whereby the parties undertake to review and compare relevant domestic regulation and to cooperate towards development of new rules. Since, largely due to GATT/WTO achievements, tariffs constitute a negligible obstacle to international trade, regulatory cooperation means striking down the other villain that is the non-tariff barriers to trade (NTB). Sceptics fear that it is an instrument of large pan-Atlantic capital, possibly attempting to oust China (as the main challenger to the US domination) and Brazil (which questioned certain cooperation model by rejecting the ISDS). Two fundamental questions rising here, are, what if these voices are wrong, and what if they are right. As for the former, the alternative for failing to conclude the agreement is to see the Atlantic economic influence in the world wane. TTIP provides an opportunity to jump-start Atlantic economy, even though this may materialise at the cost of intra-EU and intra-NAFTA trade. If they are right, gradual loss of international status may still occur; the question is though how shall we manage the process. By adopting the TTIP Chapter on regulatory cooperation the EU and the US hope to acquire an advantage of the market standard-setter, as both negotiating parties undertake to “promote international standards”.
Regulatory Cooperation under TTIP
2015
verfassungsblog.de /regulatory-cooperation-under-ttip-democracy-on-this-side-of-the-bridge/ A week ago, the EU Commission announced that investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) will no longer be part of its proposals on TTIP. This was the Commission's response to public contestation and fears that such a mechanism could place unjustified constraints on democratic institutions and on the capacity of states and of the EU to preserve their regulatory autonomy. The change announced by the Commission may be a step in the right direction. But there are other reasons of concern in the current Commission proposals, which have been overshadowed by the discussion on ISDS. Once the agreement is in place, how will decisions be made on the differences between EU and US regulation that could be usefully overcome? On which technical requirements are unnecessarily duplicated? On which standards should remain in place because they contend with health safety in a way that would not be compatible with EU standards? On which areas are too distinct to justify attempts at mutual recognition? Such issues will be decided, in a first instance, via regulatory cooperation between the EU and the US. Thus far there has been little debate on this chapter of TTIP. Yet, regulatory cooperation may remove decision-making further away from parliamentary oversight and impact on existing institutional balances in the EU.
Shaping 21 st century trade TTIP, global standards and multilateralism
CER Policy Brief, 2016
The Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) between the EU and the US, currently under negotiation, is a highly complex trade deal that promises to go well beyond the tariff-reducing regional trade agreements of the 20th century. At the centre of TTIP are non-tariff barriers to trade: regulation, standards, market access and investment protection. Common regulation and standards would create a bigger and simpler market for producers and consumers, increase competition and lower costs, since producers would no longer need to go through different regulatory procedures on each side of the Atlantic. This is especially important for global value chains – production networks that stretch across many firms and countries – which dominate 21st century international trade. Trade in parts and components (intermediate goods) makes up 50 per cent of globally traded goods. The share is even higher for intermediate services, and trade within firms already accounts for half of all commerce between the EU and the US. The idea of regulatory co-operation between the EU and the US is nothing new, but TTIP aims to intensify such co-operation, without compromising the rights of both regions to regulate for health, safety or environmental reasons. Contrary to a common perception, especially in Europe, the US does not generally have lower regulatory standards. The regions are natural partners with similar demands and preferences for health and safety, as well as environmental and labour standards. TTIP would set new international norms that third countries would have a strong incentive to follow. TTIP also covers investment protection. Economically, such protection is probably not necessary, as both regions have sophisticated legal systems and large existing flows of investment. But worldwide, there are roughly 3,000 bilateral investment treaties in existence which contain some form of investment protection and arbitration, not always to the benefit of the signing parties. An improved investment agreement between the US and the EU, therefore, would help set a new, better worldwide benchmark. TTIP will also have an impact on multilateral trade, where current negotiations are stuck in the never-ending 'Doha round'. Not all aspects of regulation and standards are suitable for full multilateralisation, as countries at different levels of development have different preferences. But in those areas, in which common global rules and standards should be the goal, TTIP could provide the benchmark that other countries can adopt. It is thus important that TTIP is kept open to third countries, especially in Europe’s neighbourhood. These countries should be consulted on regulatory initiatives and given market access once they adopt TTIP standards.
Rule-Makers or Rule-Takers? Exploring the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership
2015
The Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) is an effort by the United States and the European Union to reposition themselves for a world of diffuse economic power and intensified global competition. It is a next-generation economic negotiation that breaks the mould of traditional trade agreements. At the heart of the ongoing talks is the question whether and in which areas the two major democratic actors in the global economy can address costly frictions generated by their deep commercial integration by aligning rules and other instruments. The aim is to reduce duplication in various ways in areas where levels of regulatory protection are equivalent as well as to foster wide-ranging regulatory cooperation and set a benchmark for high-quality global norms. In this volume, European and American experts explain the economic context of TTIP and its geopolitical implications, and then explore the challenges and consequences of US-EU negotiations across numerous sensitive a...
2016
A classic theme in a new institutional setting Regulatory cooperation is a core aspect of mega-regional agreements in liberalizing trade and investment, as it enables the parties to bridge their regulatory divergences beyond what is defined in the text of the agreements. It relies on institutional and procedural structures that entail both the mutual adjustment of domestic procedures of the parties and new international fora where regulators meet to negotiate and deliberate. In the case of TTIP, regulatory cooperation will be the setting in which decisions will be prepared or made on the differences between EU and US regulation that could be usefully overcome; on the technical requirements that are unnecessarily duplicated; on the standards that should remain in place because they contend with public policy objectives in a way that would not be compatible with domestic standards; on the areas that are too distinct to justify attempts at mutual recognition or other forms of regulatory compatibility; on the standards that both parties will promote globally. This paper focuses on participation, which in addition to information exchanges and regulatory impact assessments, forms part of the trio of "good regulatory practices" that constitute the procedural basis of regulatory cooperation under TTIP. 1 The academic discussion on participation in TTIP has revived interest in the comparison between the US notice and comment system and the EU institutional practices of consultation as largely shaped by the European Commission. 2 From another angle, writings inspired on experimentalist approaches to regulation stress the importance of the involvement of stakeholders in the joint efforts of bridging the regulatory differences and regulatory gaps arising from domestic sector-focused regulation. 3 This paper takes a different approach. Building on the potential transformative effects of regulatory cooperation under TTIP, it analyses the Janus-faced nature of participation to shed light on the ambiguity that the label "good regulatory practice" may conceal. The
The Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) and Parliamentary Regulatory Cooperation
2014
While searching for information for a study on the envisaged Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP), I found a lot of brief studies on the Internet, but located neither a comprehensive assessment of the likely consequences of TTIP nor an explicit analysis of the impact on labor. However, once the study was done, I discovered that a number of very interesting papers had been published in the meantime, which together do provide such a comprehensive assessment with a focus on the impact on workers and their organizations. Therefore, I asked the authors of these studies whether they would be interested in contributing an updated version of their studies to a volume on TTIP and its implications for labor. I am very pleased that the authors responded positively and also got permission from the organizations that previously published their studies as working papers. The contribution of Stephan Beck in this volume builds on a study which was published in German in the spring of 2014 with the financial support of the Hans-Böckler-Foundation (Beck / Scherrer, 2014: Das transatlantische Handels-und Investitionsabkommen (TTIP) zwischen der EU und den USA, Arbeitspapier Nr. 303, Hans Böckler Stiftung, Düsseldorf). The contribution of the team led by Werner Raza is taken from a study commissioned by the GUE-NGL group in the European Parliament (ASSESS_TTIP). To avoid overlap with other contributions to this volume, some passages of their study that are not directly related to the assessment of the econometric studies are not included in this volume.
2015
Michelle Egan and Jacques Pelkmans provide an overview of the TBT chapter in TTIP and the various issues between the US and the EU in this area, which in turn requires extensive expositions of domestic regulation in the US and the EU. TBTs, outside heavily regulated sectors such as chemicals, automobiles or medicines (which have separate chapters in TTIP), can be caused by divergent (voluntary) standards, technical regulations and conformity assessment. Indeed, in all three the US and the EU have long experienced frictions with considerable trading costs. The 1998 Mutual Recognition Agreement about conformity assessment only succeeded in two out of six sectors. The US and European standardisation traditions differ and this paper explains why it is so hard, also economically, to realise convergence. However, the authors reject the unproductive ‘stand-off’ between US and EU negotiators on standardisation and suggest to clarify the enormous economic ‘installed base’ of prominent US sta...