TPPA (Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement)

To achieve these objectives, this chapter examines Canada’s changing
interests in an evolving region from three levels: trade and economy, security
and as a middle power. This chapter is divided into several parts.
The first part briefly introduces Canada’s interactions with Asia in the
twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. This serves to paint a broad
picture of Canada’s “Asian” engagement. The second part introduces the
concept of middle power and how it relates to Canadian foreign policy
engagement in the region. The third part of this chapter aims to chart out
possible opportunities for Canada to align itself with other middle partners
as a critical mass that can shape the Indo-Pacific region such that it
is conducive to Canadian national interests. This proactive engagement is
necessary as being absent from the Indo-Pacific table, Canada’s interests
could be on the geopolitical menu.

В статье анализируются место и роль Республики Чили в одном из самых успешных интеграционных объединений в Латинской Америке, Тихоокеанском альянсе. Рассматри-ваются текущая деятельность и перспективы объединения в регионе, особое внимание уделено действиям Чили в его рамках. Исследована тенденция кооперации интеграций латиноамериканского региона. В работе обозначена роль Азиатско-Тихоокеанского ре-гиона, как одного из наиболее динамично развивающихся игроков на мировой арене. По-казано, что страны-участницы Тихоокеанского альянса сформировали новую для лати-ноамериканского региона экономически ориентированную модель интеграции, облада-ющую огромным потенциалом для присутствия и влияния на мировых рынках. The article analyzes the place and role of Chile in one of the most successful integration associations in Latin America, the Pacific alliance. The current activities of the PA and its prospects are considered, while a special attention is paid to Chilean activities within alliance's framework. The authors analyze the tendency of cooperation of different integration blocs in Latin American region. The role of the Asia-Pacific region as one of the most dynamically developing actors in the world scene is shown. One of the most important conclusions made in the article is that the countries of the PA managed to form a new (for Latin America) pattern of integration which is mainly oriented toward economic issues and which has huge potential for further influence in the world markets.

In 2015, it seemed all but certain that President Obama would succeed in ratifying the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) with Senate approval during his last year of office. The TPP, the largest regional trade accord in history, would have set new terms for trade and business investment between the United States and 11 other Pacific Rim nations. However, despite record-breaking corporate spending and broad support for the TPP among democrats and republicans, the TPP encountered domestic challenges when the 2016 US presidential campaign featured two popular, anti-trade candidates. The political climate abruptly shifted and the TPP was never introduced to Congress for ratification leading to a surprising failure for President Obama’s signature trade initiative. This chapter examines the surprising failure of the TPP and the rise of economic populism—anti-trade rhetoric that specifically targeted the free trade agreement during the 2016 presidential campaign. The chapter examines the rise of populism through the 2016 presidential candidate narratives of Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump to examine how an anti-TPP story came to signal a commitment to the working class and American identity against a rising China.

Di arena antarabangsa, Malaysia dilihat sebagai sebuah negara yang mempunyai ekonomi

yang mapan dan bakal menjadi negara maju yang pertama dikalangan negara-negara Islam

menjelang tahun 2020. Dalam usaha itu, negara sentiasa menjalinkann hubungan baik dengan

negara-negara lain yang  diharapkan dapat memberikan keuntungan bersama. Sehingga hari ini,

Malaysia telahpun mengadakan sebanyak 7 perjanjian perdagangan bebas (FTA) secara bilateral

dan beberapa lagi perjanjian perdagangan bebas secara multilateral. Diatas keghairahan itu,

Amerika Syarikat telah menawarkan Perjanjian Perkongsian Tran-Pasifik (TPPA) yang secara

optimisnya dilihat mampu memacu sektor pelaburan dan perdagangan negara di arena

antarabangsa. Walaubagaimanapun, didalam melalui proses menandatangani perjanjian yang

mewakili 40% daripada KDNK dunia itu, terdapat pelbagai cabaran, risiko, dan manfaat yang

harus diteliti satu persatu agar kita tidak berada di pihak yang rugi dan memastikan matlamat

perjanjian itu dapat dicapai. Artikel ini mengupas secara umum apakah isu-isu didalam

perjanjian TPPA ,manfaat perjanjian ini kepada negara,risiko dan juga cadangan didalam

mewujudkan susasana menang-menang. Persoalan yang ingin dijawab juga adalah, sejauh

manakah TPPA mampu memberikan keuntungan  kepada negara, dan jika Malaysia bertindak menandatanganinya,apakah langkah yang harus diambil bagi mendapatkan manfaat terbaik.

The Transpacific Partnership (TPP) and the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) have been described as " next generation " agreements owing to their very broad geographic scope and the many policy spheres upon which they encroach. Indeed, not only do " behind-the-border issues " venture into new areas ranging from digital trade to supply chains and state-owned enterprises, but the economic weight and geographic scale of these potential free trade zones also mean that they are likely to create precedents for the global harmonization of trade rules. The fact that domestic laws concerning food safety or environmental standards – to name just two prominent examples – that were once the product of democratic processes are currently being renegotiated at the international level raises questions on the democratic governance of cross-regional free trade agreements. This is why many civil society groups (consumer associations, environmental organizations, labor unions etc.) have raised their voices to demand greater inclusiveness and transparency in trade negotiations, thereby echoing earlier debates surrounding previous forms of regionalism in Europe (e.g. the Maastricht Treaty) or North America (CUSFTA, NAFTA). In response to criticism and political mobilization, governments have attempted to develop a number of policy tools to open the trade policy process to civil society actors. 1 The impact of these measures on the ends and means of trade policy have, however, rarely come under academic scrutiny. This article aims to assess governmental initiatives to include new trade policy stakeholders in " next-generation " FTA negotiations with the aim of developing a systematic approach to evaluate the inclusiveness and accountability of trade policy making. To do so, it proceeds in three parts. The first part reviews the literature on free trade agreements to shed light on the paucity of studies concerned with the democratic governance of cross-regionalism. The second part attempts to remedy this problem through a theoretical discussion of civil society inclusion and participatory democracy in the trade policy sphere. The third part uses this methodological toolbox to analyze the respective experiences of the United States and the European Union within the context of TTIP and TPP. My ambition is less to provide an exhaustive analysis of these two complex sets of institutions and policies than to define a research agenda to assess the challenges and stakes of bringing new trade stakeholders in policymaking.

Avrupa ile ABD, Kanada ve Meksika arasında Transatlantik Ticaret ve Yatırım Ortaklığı (TTIP) şekillenirken, Avustralya, Malezya, Vietnam, Singapur, Yeni Zelanda, Şili gibi ülkelerle Kuzey Amerika ülkeleri arasında Trans Pasifik Ortaklığı (TPP) kurulmuştur. 2012 yılında ASEAN ülkeleri öncülüğünde oluşturulan RCEP (Kapsamlı Bölgesel Ekonomik Ortaklık) gibi yeni oluşumları, ABD merkezli oluşturulan TTIP ve TPP’ye karşı bir tepki ve önlem olarak okumak mümkündür. Öte yandan en önemli bölgesel ekonomik ve siyasi örgütlenme projesi olarak AB’nin de Asya ve Latin Amerika ülkeleri ile serbest ticaret anlaşmaları sayısını hızla artırmakta olduğu gerçeği de not edilmelidir.
Gerek TPP gerekse TTIP - ve gerekse RCEP gibi yeni bölgesel örgütlenmeler sadece Türkiye’nin değil tüm Asya ülkelerinin ticari ve siyasi geleceklerini derinden etkileme kapasitesine sahip oluşumlardır. Bu bağlamda Çin ve Rusya kendi bölgelerindeki mevcut ekonomik ve ticari ortaklıkları güçlendirme ve yeni ortaklıklar inşa etme arayışına girmişlerdir. Ukrayna ve Suriye gibi çatışma alanlarında ticaret ve yatırım alanı paylaşım mücadelelerinin izini sürmek mümkündür. Türkiye ölçeğindeki ve daha küçük ülkeler açısından ise bu gelişmeler ciddi problemlere gebe yeni bir durumu işaret etmektedir.

Relations between Latin America and Asia—by Asia in this case we refer to that broad swath of the Asian land mass that goes from East Asia through Southeast Asia all the way to South Asia—are undergoing a very special moment. It is precisely at moments like this that systematic reflection and analysis about the future course and direction of these links needs to happen. Much work has been done on Sino-LAC relations; some (particularly in previous decades) on the long-standing ties between Japan and the region; and Indo-LAC links are only now starting to trigger some interest. But broader reflections on the direction, pace, and quality of Asia-LAC links remain relatively few and far between.

The purpose of this volume, designed as the first part of a broader project, is to help fill this void and initiate a wide-ranging discussion about the current course of these ties: whether they should be nudged in one direction or another; what to make of present economic opportunities, and what the implications of the latter are for Latin America’s long-term development goals. Starting from current economic trends, its goal is to explore the implications of existing trade and investment patterns in Asia-LAC links. We have selected some of the most important cases in the region, but by no means all of them. Missing from this volume are significant players such as Venezuela, Ecuador, Cuba, and Costa Rica, among others, including the small states of the Caribbean. We hope to include them in future stages.

Among the questions we consider are the following: What can be done to mitigate, if not totally avoid, the “de-industrializing” effects of the demand for Latin American natural resources coming from Asia? What is the significance, if any, of the fact that trade between the two regions is largely intersectoral, with Latin America exporting mostly commodities to Asia and Asia in turn selling mostly industrial and consumer products, including many high-tech ones, to Latin America? What can Latin American countries do to get into the Asian value-added chains of production? Given that since 2003, an average of 2.3 regional trade agreements (RTAs) per year have been signed between countries of these two regions, are further FTAs and RTAs between Asia and LAC countries, like the ones between Chile and China, India and South Korea, or the one between MERCOSUR and India, the way forward? Is Taiwan still a relevant actor or have countries that have historically maintained diplomatic relations with it been seduced by the opportunities that China represents, thus leaving Taiwan behind? Are Argentina’s measures to limit foreign ownership of agricultural land a harbinger of things to come, as Asian companies move into South America? And, without downplaying China’s unmistakable role in South America’s recent prosperity, what are the sources of conflict and friction and how can they best be addressed?

No one knows what the long-term implications of Donald Trump’s unexpected election will be for the broadly conceived Asia–Pacific region. What we do know, however, is that it is likely to be very different from what has gone before. At the very least it will draw a line under Obama’s “Pivot” to Asia and to specific initiatives like the Trans-Pacific Partnership. The familiar basis of US regional engagement that has been in place for half a century may be replaced by a more “transactional” approach to foreign policy that places American national interests ahead of all others. This article considers what this may mean for East Asia in particular by analys- ing some of the deeply integrated geopolitical and geoeconomic dynamics that currently drive regional relations, but which seem to have been given little consideration by the Trump administration.

The recent challenges of populist movements to the ‘postdemocratic
horizon’ in Greece and elsewhere have highlighted its
possibilities as a political force able to mount a challenge to the
technocratic logics of the neoliberal consensus. The theoretical
perspective of Ernesto Laclau, which focuses on the rhetorical act
of naming ‘the people’ and extrinsic representative form over
intrinsic content, thus becomes increasingly valuable to explore
such possibilities and to account for the current ubiquity of
populist articulations both here in New Zealand and further afield.
However, the need to clarify and iron out any inconsistencies in
Laclau’s approach also increases, and the main task of this article
is to raise the consideration of how it could be supplemented by,
and articulated with, the Lacanian psychoanalytic concepts of
fantasy and jouissance. Analysis of a selection of John Key’s
populist articulations in the New Zealand media, and photographs
from Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) protests, reveal that both
forms of populist articulation, while constructing very different
visions of ‘the people’, hinge on the fantasmatic representation of
an other; an antagonistic power who steals our enjoyment.
However, I conclude that a normative assessment of populist
articulations is both possible and necessary.

The main objective of this study is to investigate the influence of the globalisation (Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) agreement in particular) on air pollution in Malaysia. To achieve this goal, the Autoregressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) model, Johansen cointegration test and fully modified ordinary least square (FMOLS) methods are utilised. CO 2 emission is used as an indicator of pollution while GDP per capita and urbanisation serve as its other determinants. In addition, this study uses Malaysia's total trade with 10 TPP members as an indicator of globalisation and analyse its effect on CO 2 emission in Malaysia. The outcome of this research shows that the variables are cointegrated. Additionally, GDP per capita, urbanisation and trade between Malaysia and its 10 TPP partners have a positive impact on CO 2 emissions in general. Based on the outcome of this research, important policy implications are provided for the investigated country.

The functionalist approach to cooperation explicitly
voiced at the recent trilateral and bilateral summits strongly
suggests that China, South Korea and Japan remain far apart
on core issues that continue to divide them. Moreover, shifts
in dynamics between Japan-South Korea, South Korea-
China and China-South Korea indicate that an incremental
rapprochement between Japan and South Korea is taking
place while China-Japan rapprochement continues to struggle
to find traction.

ABSTRACT
In light of the United States' 2011 declaration of an economic and military policy refocus-ing on the Asia-Pacific region, Kuan-Hsing Chen's argument for Asia as method can be expanded in Asian American critique to consider Asia and the Pacific as method. A critical analysis of Asian American settler colonialism in Hawai‘l
and in the United States constitutes one such methodology that mobilizes a mode of self-reflexive inquiry in Asian American critique and conjoins it to a decolonizing and deimperializing movement in Asia and the Pacific, underscoring the need for Asian American settlers to challenge the US settler state and its assault on indigenous peoples and to enact a future beyond empires. On a global scale, US settler colonialism and its seizures of indigenous lands enable and are enabled by US imperialist practices in Asia and the Pacific. The Moana Nui 2011 conference in Honolulu countered the militarized capitalism of empires represented by APEC and the TPP, illustrating the ways that peoples of Asia and the Pacific can build on each other's struggles and enact economies that will sustain us beyond empires, economies premised not on the production of scarcity that drives capitalism but on the restoration of abundance.

The trans-pacific partnership (TPP) has been hailed as a bold step in trade diplomacy, a gold standard agreement which not only opens markets but also boosts labor and environmental protections. Despite its future being put in doubt by the US’ withdrawal, the TPP continues without it, touted as a ‘model’ agreement to shape trade politics in the coming years. To understand the rise and fall and rise of the TPP, this article analyses it through the framework of ‘new constitutionalism’: a set of judicial and institutional mechanisms that insulate transnational capital from democratic accountability, while also opening up new spaces for accumulation and co-opting resistance. Within this framework, the TPP is understood as an instrument of crisis management, attempting to preserve the rights of capital and stimulate accumulation in response to the post-2008 crisis, while also seeking to quell the backlash against free trade by addressing labor and environmental concerns. It is this duality, however, which undermines the success of the agreement. While on the one hand the TPP aims to foreclose progressive options for governance, at the same time, it opens up spaces from which neoliberal hegemony can be contested, empowering a diverse coalition to challenge the agreement.

Resumen
Los mecanismos de solución de controversias inversor-Estado previstos en más de 3000 tratados bilaterales de inversión y otros instrumentos jurídicos han sido centro de numerosas críticas en los últimos años. En esta línea, en primer lugar, se analizarán los riesgos que entraña el sistema arbitral del Centro de Arreglo de Diferencias relativas a Inversiones (CIADI) o la Corte Permanente de Arbitraje (CPA), entre otros, y que han sido identificados desde el ámbito académico, social y gubernamental. Este trabajo analizará específicamente la conformación de los tribunales arbitrales, la ausencia de una instancia de apelación, la inclusión de una amplia diversidad de temas dentro del concepto de inversión protegida y el factor social en el arbitraje de inversiones, especialmente en relación al género y nacionalidad de los árbitros. Asimismo, se examinarán los diferentes caminos hacia la reforma o intentos de mejoramiento parcial del sistema en base a ejemplos concretos. Tal es el caso de la eliminación de ciertas áreas de la solución de controversias inversor-Estado, como las políticas de control del tabaco del Acuerdo de Asociación Transpacífico; la creación de un sistema de Cortes de Inversiones como propone la Unión Europea en los acuerdos que está negociando con terceros Estados; o la exclusión de los mecanismos de solución de controversias de los acuerdos de protección de inversiones, como en el nuevo modelo de Acuerdo de cooperación y facilitación de inversiones de Brasil.

Abstract
Investor – State dispute settlement mechanisms, that are part of more than 3000 bilateral investment treaties and other legal instruments, have been the center of numerous critics during the last years. Therefore, firstly this paper analyses the risks of International Center for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID) or Permanent Court of Arbitration, among others, which were identified by referents in academia, civil society and governments. The paper specifically the designation of arbitrators, the lack of an instance of appeal, the wide concept of protected investment and social factor in investment arbitration, specially arbitrator's gender and nationality.

Proses pembukaan pasar dunia dan perluasan perdagangan telah dimulai di Amerika Serikat pada tahun 1934 dan berperan penting dalam perkembangan dan kemakmuran Amerika Serikat.  Dari masa ke masa, fokus kebijakan ekonomi internasional Amerika  Serikat  terus  berubah. Pada Tahun 1990-an, fokus kebijakan ekonomi internasional Amerika  Serikat  berpindah ke kawasan Asia Pasifik, melalui  forum Asia Pacific Economic Cooperasion (APEC). Kawasan Asia  Pasifik  saat  itu  telah  menjadi  kawasan  penting  bagi  Amerika  Serikat daripada sebelumnya. Geopolitik berpindah semakin cepat sebagai akibat dari krisis ekonomi global yang terjadi.  APEC bukanlah satu-satunya wadah Amerika Serikat untuk memenuhi kepentingan ekonominya di kawasan Asia Pasifik. Institusi internasional lainnya adalah Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP). TPP adalah elemen kunci dari strategi administrasi Obama untuk membuat keterlibatan Amerika Serikat di kawasan Asia Pasifik menjadi prioritas utama.

As an extension of APEC, the TPP once again stimulates the competition between the two wide trends of regional integration in East Asia, namely East Asianism and Asia Pacificism. With trade agreements serving both economic and strategic purposes, the TPP has the potential to change the political and security environment in East Asia. This article addresses the economic and strategic implications of the TPP and China’s strategic debate on the TPP. This article first describes the development of regional integration in East Asia and the potential implications of the TPP on the process before examining China’s strategic debate on the new U.S. initiative.

In the struggle for supremacy between two diametrically opposed systems to protect Geographical Indications (GIs), the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPP) gives the decisive push in favour of the trademark system. This has profound implications for generic geographical names, not only for TPP members, but also for their trade partners. Appellation d’Origine Contrôlée (AOC), Lisbon Agreement, EU’s Protected Designation of Origin (PDO) and Protected Geographical Indication (PGI) regime and the Geneva Act of the Lisbon Agreement set up sui generis registration systems in order to protect the AOs, PDOs/PGIs and GIs against confusion, dilution, deception and usurpation. These sui generis systems have a shield against becoming generic in common. The question is whether the maximalist doctrine for multilateral treaties have reached its zenith with the Geneva Act of the Lisbon Agreement. Since this multilateral treaty allows intergovernmental organizations to become members, the EU could drastically change the significance of this sui generis system. Then again, the TPP suggests that the pendulum is swinging back for multilateral treaties towards a trademark dominated GI system that protects non-wines and spirits against confusion, dilution and deception, but not against usurpation. By demanding that TPP members be able to protect GIs via trademarks, Article 18.19 TPP gave a deathblow to any exclusive sui generis regime. Nevertheless, a fortiori, the battle for hegemony of the sui generis or trademark system will continue along the vault line of the Old and New Worlds at the level of bilateral free-trade agreements and specific GI agreements.

This research investigates the implications of trade on labour rights. It examines whether the labour commitments in the TPP improve labour rights in Viet Nam or not. It evaluates the current situation of law and practice in Viet Nam using the TPP requirements as a benchmark. It finds that freedom of association is the most difficult issue for Viet Nam since it conflicts with the political system and the hierarchical, authoritarian trade union structure in Viet Nam. Due to benefits of the TPP, Viet Nam will carry out reforms needed to meet the TPP labour requirements. However, while interests are aligned on joining the TPP they will not be aligned on compliance, and the implementation of these reforms will be challenging since the fully enjoyment of freedom of association is not recognised and supported in practice. It concludes that trade can improve workers’ right to freedom of association in the books of law but rarely improve their enjoyment of this right in practice.

The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) will have profound implications for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) within and beyond the free trade area. SME issues get more attention in the TPP than previous FTAs. Since there is limited research on the impact of the FTAs on SMEs, it is of great significance to probe into the practical implications of the TPP for SMEs. The key question will be analyzed: what are the challenges and opportunities that the TPP hold for SMEs? It is argued that, first, the support to SMEs, tariff elimination or reduction, and the reduction of non-tariff barriers are major opportunities presented by the TPP. The key benefits to SMEs are enhanced market opening and increased predictability. However, such opportunities may have limited effects in improving market position for certain SMEs. Second, the TPP will pose major challenges such as insufficiency of the opportunities to SMEs, the complexity of rules, difficulties in rule interpretation and implementation, remained regulatory differences, disadvantaged positions of SMEs from developing TPP countries, and the impact on SMEs negatively affected by trade liberalization. There will be more challenges for SMEs from non-TPP parties. Third, if the TPP is properly managed, it should bring more opportunities than challenges to SMEs. The opportunities and challenges deriving from the TPP are intimately connected.

The Doha Round of negotiations of the World Trade Organization has become a major battleground between developed and developing countries. Begun in 2001, the Doha negotiations have yet to be concluded, leading to widespread frustration on its sluggish pace. Meanwhile, new Regional Trade Agreements have been launched, begging the question: Has trade governance reached a critical junction, with one path leading to the strengthening of the multilateral principles of global trade, and the other, to the abandoning of these principles and the evolution of a different constitution for 21st-century multilateralism? This paper reviews literature and legal text to deduce answers to these questions. It analyses the relationship between the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) and Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA), and trade multilateralism. This paper finds that RTAs can be seen as a strike at multilateralism and this, in turn, can be regarded as either a negative or positive direction, depending on what principles and objectives are held as the legitimate building blocks of trade multilateralism.

Un análisis del lugar de Malasia, el Estrecho de Malaca, punto estratégico en el comercio marítimo mundial, en la geotrategia mundial, puntualmente, vinculado con el Acuerdo Estratégico Trans Pacífico de Asociación Económica  impulsado por Estados Unidos. Se constituye en un espacio clave en la disputa global entre dos grandes potencias, Estados Unidos, con su maniobra llamada Pivot Asiático, y China, con su proyectada Ruta de la Seda

The emergence of “mega-regional” trade agreements has recently become the most significant trade policy issue in the Asia-Pacific. Since 2010, governments in the region have launched negotiations for two new trade agreements: the United States-led Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) and the ASEAN-led Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP). Differentiated by their membership, scope and level of ambition, the TPP and RCEP embody competing visions for how the Asia-Pacific trade system should evolve, and regional governments must now make choices over which initiative better serves their economic and political interests. This article explores the trade policy choice posed by these mega-regional trade negotiations, reviewing the evolution of the Asia-Pacific trade system, the recent emergence of the TPP and RCEP, and the competitive dynamics inherent in the development of the two proposals. It argues that four key considerations (trade policy ambition, the role of ASEAN, US-China geopolitical rivalry and defensive concerns) will be of key importance in informing regional governments’ decisions as the TPP and RCEP move towards completion in 2015.

Sections on Mega-regionals; and on TPP, TTIP (with Peter Draper) in a collection of essays by various authors, members of the WEF's Global Agenda Council.

World Trade Organization (WTO) members have been
active in negotiating regional trade agreements (RTAs),
among which mega-regional RTAs (mega-regionals) now
occupy centre stage. Mega-regionals are deep integration
partnerships between countries or regions with a major share
of world trade and foreign direct investment (FDI), and in
which two or more of the parties are in a paramount driver
position, or serve as hubs, in global value chains. Beyond market
access, emphasis in this integration is on the quest
for regulatory compatibility and a rules basket aimed at
ironing out differences in investment and business climates.
This report’s focus is on mega-regionals, and on the Trans-
Pacific Partnership (TPP) and the Trans-Atlantic Trade and
Investment Partnership (TTIP) in particular. They are singled
out given their conformity with criteria that profiles them as
a potential new pillar of trade governance, complementary
to the multilateral trade system: the agreement would affect
a share of at least a quarter of world trade in goods and
services and of global FDI; at least two economies party to
the agreement are hubs in global value chains (GVCs) as
evidenced by their share of trade intermediate goods and
tasks in the regions involved; the agreement’s coverage goes
deeper and beyond the WTO, RTAs and bilateral investment
treaties (BITs), addressing a minimum of areas and regulatory
reform essential to 21st-century world markets; and parties
to the agreement are engaged in multiple RTAs with third-party
economies and enjoy extensive trade and investment
exchange with a significant number of non-members, making
the partnership a potential reverse trade-diversion scheme.

Meléndez-Ortiz, R. (2014). Mega-regionals: What is going on? In Mega-regional trade agreements: Game-changers or costly distractions for the World Trading System? Edited by Anabel Gonzalez - Global Agenda Council on Trade & Foreign Direct Investment. Geneva: World Economic Forum.

The ongoing plurilateral WTO Environmental Goods Agreement negotiations reflect the two defining dynamics that affect global environmental and trade governance. First of all, the rising trade remedies against environmental goods increased the cost of pursuing green growth for countries. Secondly, the looming fragmentation caused by mega-regionalism, such as the Trans-Pacific- Partnership, and its trade diversion effects might disincentivize developing countries from pursuing environmentally-friendly growth in order to obtain market access. Current negotiations for a plurilateral approach reflect the efforts of multilateral systems to confront these challenges through a reform of the rules of global trade architecture, thereby paving the way for further green
growth. That’s why this paper is divided into three sections. The first one analyzes the trade remedies targeting environmental goods, and its consequences for global environmental governance. The second section analyses whether the current plurilateral approach can provide developing
countries with an alternative incentive for green growth to compensate the potential trade diversion of the Trans-Pacific-Partnership. The third part gives a brief overview of the progress of the ongoing negotiations.

State-owned enterprises have long constituted, and are likely to remain, an important instrument in any government’s toolbox for a variety of economic and societal goals. However, the significant extent of state ownership among the world’s top companies, and the quantitative and qualitative transformation and hybrid nature of SOEs, raises the issue of their impact on international trade flows and the competitive process. This article addresses the question of how international trade agreements regulate SOEs, with a view to furthering the international contestability of markets, while, at the same time, allowing governments to provide support to SOEs as a means of dealing with market failures and the pursuit of public goals. After a brief introduction to contemporary state capitalism, the argument is developed in three main parts. The first part situates SOEs within the GATT and WTO frameworks and elaborates on the findings of previous literature with a view to highlighting the main shortcomings of such discipline. The second part re-examines the notion of ‘competitive neutrality’ by locating contemporary trade agreements within the larger contextual relationships between the state, the market and the social, and thus reconstructs the normative rationales and general policy implications of the disciplines under examination. Against this background, the third part critically assesses the new disciplines on SOEs in recent PTAs. The main conclusion is that the search for binding rules has not led to balanced regimes and, despite the wider scope of the new rules, notable problems that have emerged within the WTO context remain unsolved.

Keywords: WTO law; SOEs; PTAs; international market contestability; non-commercial assistance.

Este ensayo analiza los antecedentes, el desarrollo y los alcances de la estrategia mexicana de inserción en la región Asia-Pacífico mediante la firma del Acuerdo Transpacífico de Cooperación Económica (TPP), actualmente Tratado Integral y Progresista de Asociación Transpacífico (CPTPP).