IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/eab/govern/24161.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Preferentialism in Trade Relations : Challenges for the World Trade Organization

Author

Listed:
  • Patrick Low

    (Asian Development Bank Institute (ADBI))

Abstract

This paper argues that preferential trade agreements (PTAs) and the World Trade Organization (WTO) are not substitutes, and while PTAs are without doubt here to stay, dispensing with a multilateral venue for doing business in trade matters is not a serious option. It is therefore necessary to seek out better accommodation between PTAs and the WTO than has been apparent to date. The law of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT)/WTO has systematically fallen short in imposing discipline on discriminatory reciprocal trade agreements, while procedural requirements, such as notifications, have been partially observed at best, and dispute settlement findings have tended to reinforce existing weaknesses in the disciplines. One approach to remedying this situation is to explore a different kind of cooperation—that of soft law. A soft law approach to improving coherence and compatibility between the WTO and PTAs may hold some promise, but the option also has its pitfalls.

Suggested Citation

  • Patrick Low, 2014. "Preferentialism in Trade Relations : Challenges for the World Trade Organization," Governance Working Papers 24161, East Asian Bureau of Economic Research.
    • Handle: RePEc:eab:govern:24161
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.eaber.org/node/24161
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Preferentialism in trade relations; preferential trade agreements (PTAs); WTO; soft law;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • F1 - International Economics - - Trade
    • F5 - International Economics - - International Relations, National Security, and International Political Economy
    • F6 - International Economics - - Economic Impacts of Globalization
    • K3 - Law and Economics - - Other Substantive Areas of Law

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eab:govern:24161. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Shiro Armstrong (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/eaberau.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.