The proliferation of regional trade agreements, including both free trade agreements and customs unions, over the past decade has provoked many new legal issues in WTO law, public international law, and an emerging law of regional trade agreements. The various Parts of this book chart this development from a number of perspectives. Part 1 introduces the economic and political underpinnings of regional trade agreements, their constitutional functions, and their role as a locus for integrating trade and human rights. Part 2 examines the WTO rules governing regional trade agreements, focusing on a number of areas in which regional trade agreements prove problematic, such as trade remedies, regulatory standards and rules of origin. Part 3 investigates areas in which regional trade agreements go beyond WTO rules, in areas such as intellectual property, investment, competition, services, sustainable development and mutual recognition, while Part 4 is devoted to the dispute settlement mechanisms of regional trade agreements, and includes illuminating case studies. Part 5 explores the interrelationship between regional trade agreements and the WTO system from the perspective of public international law, involving questions with significance beyond the trade community.
Preface ; 1. Introduction ; PART I FRAMEWORK ISSUES ; 2. The Economic Dimension of Regional Trade Agreements and their Relation to the Multilateral Trading System: A Survey of the Literature ; 3. The Political Economy of Regional Trade Agreements ; 4. Constitutional Functions of the WTO and Regional Trade Agreements ; PART 2 WTO REGULATION OF REGIONAL TRADE AGREEMENTS ; 5. Regional Trade Agreements and Domestic Regulation: What Reach for 'Other Restrictive Regulations of Commerce' ; 6. Mandatory Abolition of Antidumping, Counterveiling Duties and Safeguards in Customs Unions and Free-Trade Areas Constituted Between WTO Members: Revisiting a Long Standing Discussion in Light of the Appellate Body's Turkey - Textiles Ruling ; 7. Do Rules of Origin in Free Trade Agreements Comply with Article XXIV GATT? ; PART III WTO-PLUS ISSUES IN REGIONAL TRADE AGREEMENTS ; 8. Services Liberalisation in Regional Trade Agreements: Lessons for GATS 'Unfinished Business'? ; 9. International Agreements Covering Foreign Investment : Patterns and Linkage ; 10. TRIPS-Plus Provisions in Regional Trade Agreements ; 11. Competition Law and Regional Trade Agreements ; 12. Is Mutual Recognition an Alternative to Harmonisation? Lesson on Trade and Tolerance of Diversity from the EU ; 13. The WTO, Regional Trade Agreements and Human Rights ; 14. Sustainable Development in Regional Trade Agreements ; PART IV DISPUTE SETTLEMENT IN REGIONAL TRADE AGREEMENTS ; 15. Dispute Settlement in Regional Trade Agreements and the WTO ; 16. NAFTA Dispute Settlement: Creative Experiment or Confusion? ; 17. Bilateral Dispute Settlement in EU Free Trade Agreements: Lessons Learned? ; 18. Dispute Settlement in Bilateral Free Trade Agreements: The EFTA Experience ; 19. Dispute Settlement in the Proposed East Asia Regional Trade Agreements: What Can We Learn From the EU and NAFTA? ; PART V INTERFACES BETWEEN THE WTO AND REGIONAL TRADE AGREEMENTS ; 20. The EU and its Member States in the WTO: Issues of Responsibility ; 21. Overlaps and Conflicts of Jurisdiction Between the WTO and RTA's ; 22. Applicability of WTO Law in Regional Trade Agreements: Identifying the Links ; 23. What Role is there for Regional International Law in the Interpretation of the WTO Agreements?
