International Trade Agreements

8 Key excerpts on "International Trade Agreements"

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  eBook - ePub

  A Dictionary of International Trade Organizations and Agreements

  • Patrick Holden(Author)
  • 2011(Publication Date)
  • Taylor & Francis

    (Publisher)

  International Trade Organizations and Agreements: an Introduction

  PATRICK HOLDEN

  International trade and International Trade Agreements have played a fundamental role in world history, but international trade organizations and truly multilateral/global trade agreements are relatively new. In the contemporary era, and especially since the end of the Cold War, the spread of regional and multilateral trade agreements has intensified. This is illustrated by the establishment of the World Trade Organization (WTO), the growth of new regional trading blocs, such as NAFTA and Mercosur, and the deepening of existing trading blocs, such as the European Union (EU). Furthermore, the reach of such agreements, the constraints they place on government policy and their impact on people’s lives has become increasingly apparent. In 2009 the Democratic Party achieved control of the Presidency and the Congress in the world’s only superpower. Yet the ‘Buy America’ provisions, added by the Democratic Congress to the economic stimulus package proposed by Barack Obama’s Administration, had to be moderated because they conflicted with WTO law. In Europe, club football was forever changed by the European Court of Justice’s famous Bosman ruling in 1995, on footballers’ right to transfer clubs. Clearly, very many political, economic and social phenomena are shaped by the web of International Trade Agreements. Such ‘trade’ agreements have developed out of policies and procedures ranging from regulating tariffs and other aspects of customs administrations to setting rules for a wide range of social and economic activities, which may affect trade. This is an inherently expansive agenda, as just about anything may be deemed to affect trade. The apogee of this dynamic, thus far, may well be the WTO’s TRIPS (Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights) Agreement, which goes so far as to define which forms of life may be patented. As a result of this, trade agreements have unprecedented salience in public life. The WTO is viewed as a vector of globalization, and it was a WTO Ministerial Conference (Seattle 1999) that witnessed the public birth of the ‘anti-globalization’ movement. Yet it would be very wrong to assume that WTO and other agreements entirely override the state. One reason for the complexity, and opacity, of such agreements is the range of exceptions and derogations offered to states. For example, a core principle of the GATT/WTO is that members should be granted ‘most favoured nation’ status: this means that any trade concession that a state offers to one member should be offered to all members. Yet the WTO permits its members to join entities such as the EU, NAFTA and Mercosur, whose core function is directly contradictory to this: they provide their members with better market access than is accorded to outside countries. The major purpose of this dictionary is to offer the reader a concise analysis of the powers and limitations of these agreements and organizations.

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  Core Documents on International Law 2022-23

  • Karen Hulme(Author)
  • 2022(Publication Date)
  • Hart Publishing

    (Publisher)

  needs of their economic development, BEING DESIROUS of contributing to these objectives by entering into reciprocal and mutually advantageous arrangements directed to the substantial reduction of tariffs and other barriers to trade and to the elimination of discriminatory treatment in international trade relations, RESOLVED, therefore, to develop an integrated, more viable and durable multilateral trading system encompassing the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, the results of past trade liberalization efforts, and all of the results of the Uruguay Round of Multilateral Trade Negotiations, DETERMINED to preserve the basic principles and to further the objectives underlying this multilateral trading system, AGREE as follows: Article I Establishment of the Organization The World Trade Organization (hereinafter referred to as ‘the WTO’) is hereby established .Article II Scope of the WTO 1 .The WTO shall provide the common institutional framework for the conduct of trade relations among its Members in matters related to the agreements and associated legal instruments included in the Annexes to this Agreement .2 .The agreements and associated legal instruments included in Annexes 1, 2 and 3 (hereinafter referred to as ‘Multilateral Trade Agreements’) are integral parts of this Agreement, binding on all Members .*Source: http://www .wto .org/english/docs_e/legal_e/04-wto .pdf .Reproduced with the permission of the World Trade Organization .

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  Regional Economic Integration and Dispute Settlement in East Asia

  The Evolving Legal Framework

  • Anna G Tevini(Author)
  • 2018(Publication Date)
  • Hart Publishing

    (Publisher)

  246 Finally, Annex 3 of the WTO Agreement established the so-called Trade Policy Review Mechanism (‘TPRM’), which requires Members annually to report their trade policies and practices to the newly created Trade Policy Review Body. 247 In parallel to the WTO Members’ information duties, there is an information duty of the WTO towards its Members, which is handled by the WTO Secretariat. 248 V. ECONOMIC INTEGRATION THROUGH REGIONAL TRADE AGREEMENTS While the WTO Agreement regulates economic integration at the multilateral level, formal economic integration at the regional level is regulated by RTAs. A. Definition and Terminology RTAs shall be defined as formally binding agreements between two or more States or independent customs territories directed at enhancing and/or achieving full or par-tial economic integration through the reciprocal 249 reduction or elimination of trade barriers between the signatory States. 250 As agreements which aim at ‘managed free trade’ among a small group of nations, RTAs stand in contrast to the two opposing trade policies of unilateral tariff reductions, on the one hand, and free trade through multilateral negotiations under the umbrella of the WTO, on the other hand. 251 Economic Integration Through Regional Trade Agreements 39 252 See in more detail ch I s V.B.ii below 253 See Bhagwati and Panagariya (1996), 1, 42. See also Winters (1999), 7, 8. 254 However, bilateral agreements may include more than two countries when one or both of the parties are RTAs themselves (eg the EU-Mexico Free Trade Agreement of December 1997). 255 Example for an ‘intra-regional’ RTA include the European Union or the North American Free Trade Area (NAFTA). An example for an ‘inter-regional’ RTA is the Free Trade Agreement between South Korea and Chile. 256 See, eg, the European Communities, the European Free Trade Association (EFTA), the Andean Pact, the Canada-US Free Trade Agreement and its successor, the North American Free Trade Area (NAFTA).

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  International Organisations and Global Problems

  Theories and Explanations

  • Susan Park(Author)
  • 2018(Publication Date)
  • Cambridge University Press

    (Publisher)

  As an interim measure, states agreed to negotiate through what became known as the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT). The GATT was essentially a process for negotiating trade liberalisation through establishing an agreement or contract among the parties. The General Agreement establishing the rules for international trade was endorsed in 1947, forming the basis for the current global trade regime. It would take nearly 50 years for the idea of an international trade body to come to fruition. Three factors underpinned the push to multilateralise international trade. The fi rst was the liberal economic idea that free trade between states is mutually advantageous and therefore improves people ’ s welfare, on the basis of com-parative advantage (see Box 7.1 ). This challenged the statist arguments put forward by mercantilists and economic nationalists that states should protect their interests and power by ensuring that they bene fi t more than their competi-tors in any agreement (this is similar to the view held by neorealists). Economic nationalist sentiments underpinned states ’ beggar-thy-neighbour policies, including the raising of tariffs on imports to protect their own producers that 134 Promoting International Trade contributed to the Great Depression . The second was the recognition in the aftermath of WWII that economic growth was being driven by an increase in international trade, not just the manufacture of goods, and that liberalising trade would therefore facilitate greater economic growth (O ’ Brien and Williams 2007 ). Third, the United States as the hegemon was an advocate of multilateral-ism, with the willingness to create, and resources to expend on creating, international rules for trade (Ruggie 1992 ). With the aim of eliminating trade barriers, 23 states became GATT contract-ing parties in 1947; 13 of them were advanced economies then representing 80 per cent of world trade.

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  Legal and Economic Principles of World Trade Law

  • Henrik Horn, Petros C. Mavroidis(Authors)
  • 2013(Publication Date)
  • Cambridge University Press

    (Publisher)

  Why the WTO? 35 incompleteness” of trade agreements will be discussed in more detail in the accompanying ALI study on the treatment of domestic instruments in the GATT. 2.3.4.4 Trade Agreements Involve Reciprocal Exchanges of Concessions The final property of the design of trade agreements that we will point to is that they entail reciprocal reductions in tariffs, and other trade barriers. In theory, it would be possible to have nonreciprocal agreements. Indeed, each pair of countries could negotiate a separate agreement for each tariff line and for each trade direction, with each such agreement specifying a tariff reduc- tion against, say, a monetary payment. The fact that virtually all agreements we observe involve reciprocal undertakings to reduce trade barriers, strongly sug- gests that there are efficiency gains from reciprocal exchanges that are not cap- tured in the model above. The economic literature offers surprisingly little by way of explanation of this feature, however. But it seems quite clear intuitively that it would be extremely costly to negotiate separate agreements for each trade bar- rier, since this would involve significant duplication of negotiation efforts and other resources; for instance, each of the agreements would then require a sepa- rate dispute-settlement mechanism. Furthermore, the payments require the col- lection of tax revenue, which is likely to distort the economy. In addition, the par- ties need to agree on the monetary value of each tariff concession, which might be more difficult than to agree on reciprocal tariff reductions. There are thus clear gains in terms of reduced administrative costs and negotiation costs to form a package of tariff reductions. 2.4 A Special Case: The National Market Power Model The effects of government’s economic policies cross international bound- aries and impact actors residing outside their political borders.

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  The European Union and China, 1949-2008

  Basic Documents and Commentary

  • Francis Snyder(Author)
  • 2009(Publication Date)
  • Hart Publishing

    (Publisher)

  62 Bilateral Agreements on Trade and Textiles, 1975–Present CHAPTER 1 Trade Cooperation Article 2 The two Contracting Parties confirm their determination: (a) to take all appropriate measures to create favourable conditions for trade between them; (b) to do their utmost to improve the structure of their trade in order to diversify it further; (c) to examine, each for its own part and in a spirit of goodwill, any suggestions made by the other Party, in particular in the Joint Committee, for the purpose of facilitating trade between them. Article 3 1. In their trade relations, the two Contracting Parties shall accord each other most-favoured-nation treatment in all matters regarding: (a) customs duties and charges of all kinds applied to the import, export, re-export, or transit of products, including the procedures for the collection of such duties or charges; (b) regulations, procedures and formalities concerning customs clearance, transit, ware-housing and transhipment of products imported or exported; (c) taxes and other internal charges levied directly or indirectly on products or services imported or exported; (d) administrative formalities for the issue of import or export licences. 2. Paragraph 1 shall not apply in the case of: (a) advantages accorded by either Contracting Party to States which together with it are members of a customs union or free trade area; (b) advantages accorded by either Contracting Party to neighbouring countries for the purpose of facilitating border trade; (c) measures which either Contracting Party may take in order to meet its obligations under international commodity agreements. Article 4 The two Contracting Parties will make every effort to foster the harmonious expansion of their reciprocal trade and to help, each by its own means, to attain a balance in such trade. Should an obvious imbalance arise, the matter must be examined within the Joint Committee so that measures can be recommended in order to improve the situation.

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  Preferential Trade Agreements and International Law

  • Graeme Baber(Author)
  • 2018(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)

  1 The World Trade Organization’s International Trade Agreements – The General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade Structure and Commentary

  On 15 April 1994, the Parties to the Agreement Establishing the World Trade Organization decided to found the WTO1 . The Annexes to that Agreement contained 13 Multilateral Agreements on Trade in Goods (including the GATT2 ) – one of which expired on 1 January 20053 , the GATS4 , the TRIPS5 , the DSU6 , the TPRM7 and the four Plurilateral Trade Agreements8 – two of which are no longer in force9 . On 22 February 2017, a further Multilateral Agreement on Trade in Goods – the Agreement on Trade Facilitation – was added to Annex 1A to the Agreement Establishing the World Trade Organization, and came into force on that date10 .

  The GATT

  The GATT comprises its predecessor, GATT 194711 – subject to minor modifications12 – and the following additional documents: (i) identified protocols and decisions that came into force prior to the date on which the Agreement Establishing the World Trade Organization became effective13 , (ii) six specified Understandings14 , and (iii) the Marrakesh Protocol15 . Reference to Articles in the GATT in this book are to the updated version of GATT 1947 – although these only refer to ‘GATT’, as they also apply under the 1994 Agreement.

  Article I: General Most-Favoured-Nation Treatment

  Article I:1: The MFN Rule

  Article I:1 of the GATT provides that, in respect of issues concerning importation, exportation or the cross-border transfer of payments with regard to imports or exports, any favourable treatment that a Member of the WTO provides to another state in respect of any product originating in or in transit to the latter is to be instantly and unconditionally granted to the same product that was produced in or destined for the territory of any other Member16 . This is known as the MFN Rule, as it requires MFN treatment to be extended to all Members of the WTO17 . Article I:1 of the GATT is intended to prevent discrimination between similar products that originate in, or are destined for, different jurisdictions18 . Accordingly, this Article applies to measures that appear to be ‘origin-neutral’ but which make it possible for discrimination to be made in practice19 . Furthermore, the application of MFN treatment in part only – to some products but not others and/or with regard to some but not all Members of the WTO, is a breach of Article I:1 of the GATT – which specifies any advantage, product and Member20

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  Asia-Pacific Trade and Investment Report 2015

  Supporting Participation in Value Chains

  • United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific(Author)
  • 2015(Publication Date)
  • United Nations Publications

    (Publisher)

  Normally, the WTO reports the number of trade agreements based on notification requirements, which means that if a trade agreement includes both goods and services, it will be counted as two notifications – one for goods and the other for services – even though it is physically one trade agreement. To prevent unnecessary inflation of the number of agreements, only the physical number of trade agreements is reported here, counting goods and services between the same partners as one. 3 In addition to the agreements notified to WTO, the Asia-Pacific Trade and Investment Agreements Database (APTIAD) records agreements that have not been notified to WTO, which has resulted in the increased number. 4 For example, previous issues of the Asia-Pacific Trade and Investment Report (ESCAP, 2009, 2010, 2011a, 2011b, 2012a, 2012b , 2013 and 2014) as well as other publications by the ESCAP Trade and Investment Division, including APTIAD Briefing Notes. 5 Classified as Partial Scope Agreements (partial tariff reduction commitments), free trade agreements (FTAs), custom unions (CU), and economic integration agreements (EIAs), which in the WTO taxonomy are reserved for services only. 6 Classified as bilateral, plurilateral or country-bloc agreements. 7 Classified as “in force”, “pending country ratification” or “under negotiation”. 8 The numbers presented in figure 6.1 are based on the established WTO practice of self-classification by economies with regard to their development level. Following that practice, only three Asia-Pacific economies are “developed” and the remainder are “developing”, including the special category of least developed countries, despite the fact that a number of them have a high rate of GDP per capita and a not-insignificant share in world trade.

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