Ten Years of the WTO: Reflections on the Future of Regional and Global Trade (original) (raw)
Related papers
Regional trade agreements and the WTO
The North American Journal of Economics and Finance, 2001
The rapid growth in the number of regional trade agreements (RTAs) has led to concern about the weakening of the multilateral trading system. This paper looks at the spread of such agreements and the extent to which they pose a threat to the system.
This paper faces the question whether the relationship between the WTO and Regional Trade Agreements (RTAs) would be better qualified as a question of interrelation between different sources of international law (custom and treaty) rather than as a matter of compatibility or conflict between treaties. Initially, this idea was stimulated by the factual remark that RTAs quite systematically diverge from the requirements of GATT Article XXIV and other similar WTO provisions. In a strict international law perspective, to widen the inquiry necessarily means answering the question whether non-compliant State practice could be viewed as a tacit performance of an international custom and not simply as a generalized behaviour being wrong under WTO law. On the basis of a historical overview of the main theories developed over this topic in the past century, the present analysis elaborates the argument of a customary "regional exception" and prospects the existence, in the international trade relations, of an unwritten right or freedom to prefer, i.e. a right or freedom to conclude RTAs and, of course, to continue to take part in these preferential arrangements. It is also quite possible that, as such a custom crystallized before the advent of the GATT 1947 and Article XXIV has always been inoperative, there has been a sort of continuum in the transition from the pre-to the post-GATT period and, hence, that GATT Article XXIV did not properly fall into desuetude. On the practical side, the real dynamics of the WTO-RTAs' relationship are characterised by a somewhat anarchical situation where it is not the WTO which determines and enforces the legitimacy of the RTAs but it is the RTAs themselves which determine the degree of their adherence to the WTO law, through their concrete autonomous behaviour. This phenomenon might be explained, from an international law general perspective, as being the practical consequence (and a presumption) of the interrelation between a treaty (WTO) and a custom (the RTAs), that is between two different sources which can reciprocally derogate from each other.
With the creation of the World Trade Organization (WTO) in 1995, the pyramidal design of the international trading system placed multilateralism at the top of the pyramid, regionalism/bilateralism in the middle, and the domestic trade and economic policies of WTO Member States at the bottom of the pyramid. This article questions whether this vertical structure is still the case today, given the tremendous proliferation of regional trade agreements (RTAs) in recent years and the fact that the WTO is losing its centrality in the international trading system. The thesis of this article is that the multilateral trading system's single undertaking is no longer feasible, hence affirming RTA proliferation as the modus operandi for trade liberalization. This article also argues that RTA proliferation implies the erosion of the WTO law principle of non-discrimination, which endangers the multilateral trading system. RTAs can help countries integrate into the multilateral trading system, but are also a fundamental departure from the principle of non-discrimination. This raises the question of whether RTAs are a building block for further multilateral liberalization or a stumbling block.
Proliferation of Regional Trade Agreements: Complementing or Supplanting Multilateralism
With the creation of the World Trade Organization (WTO) in 1995, the pyramidal design of the international trading system placed multilateralism at the top of the pyramid, regionalism/bilateralism in the middle, and the domestic trade and economic policies of WTO Member States at the bottom of the pyramid. This article questions whether this vertical structure is still the case today, given the tremendous proliferation of regional trade agreements (RTAs) in recent years and the fact that the WTO is losing its centrality in the international trading system. The thesis of this article is that the multilateral trading system's single undertaking is no longer feasible, hence affirming RTA proliferation as the modus operandi for trade liberalization. This article also argues that RTA proliferation implies the erosion of the WTO law principle of non-discrimination, which endangers the multilateral trading system. RTAs can help countries integrate into the multilateral trading system, but are also a fundamental departure from the principle of non-discrimination. This raises the question of whether RTAs are a building block for further multilateral liberalization or a stumbling block.
International Journal of Sciences: Basic and Applied Research, 2015
Regional Trade Agreements (RTA) are entered into by countries to provide more favourable trading terms amongst member countries. Certain countries in a particular region may decide to go into such agreements so that they can allow for more favourable trading terms other than the trade terms enjoyed under World Trade Organization (WTO). These RTAs emerged from the WTO as immediate aftermath of the Cancun failure, which led major players in the WTO system to suggested that in order to make progress, they would turn to the negotiation of regional trade agreements in lieu of pursuing talks in the WTO multilateral system. The WTO seeks to ensure that the RTAs are successful by putting in place some structures in the form of procedural systems to follow in order to adopt and implement the RTAs. Notable among these systems is the notification of the RTA by member countries to the WTO. Whether these systems are working towards the achievement of the RTAs’ objectives is a questions of fact w...
TAKING STOCK OF GATT’S CONFLICTING PROVISIONS: COMPETITIVE LIBERALIZATION AND THE DEMISE OF THE WTO
Contained in the GATT, are provisions whose applications contradict each other. Article XXIV, which empowers WTO members to form regional trade agreements (RTAs), otherwise referred to as competitive liberalization, is contrary to the idea of the Most-Favored-Nation (MFN) principle set out article I. Indeed article XXIV is an exception to article I, however the conflict caused by these provisions, has led to a situation where the two will not co-exist for long, and one will eventually phase-out the other. While under article I, countries are prevented from discriminating between their trading partners, and any benefit granted to one member of the WTO must be extended to all WTO members; article XXIV gives countries the option of circumventing article I, to offer preferential trade benefits to only the select few with which they choose to trade through the formation of RTAs. Thus, conclusion of RTAs is a practice that is contrary to the interest of the World Trade Organization. Rules of origin present in most RTAs have a negative impact on competitive liberalization, a key goal of the WTO in combatting protectionism, as RTAs grant special treatment to members regardless of their inability to produce commodities more competitively than non-members due to the reciprocal benefits of RTAs. This seeks to frustrate the aims of the WTO in attempting to effectively regulate international trade, because while RTAs facilitate trade amongst its members; it hinders trade for non-member with which it has no trade desires. Regrettably, however, the WTO has faced increasing difficulty in the regulation of RTAs, in their manifold shapes and sizes.