Competition Policy and Law in Regional Economic Integration (Japanese)

This paper analyzes competition policy and antimonopoly law provisions with respect to regional integration. The international aspects of competition policy and antimonopoly law can take a variety of forms. With regard to the forms of agreement between countries, we compare bilateral agreements (focusing on bilateral cooperation and mutual assistance agreements) and multilateral agreements (focusing on the WTO) with agreements that adopt the form of regional integration, and through this we highlight aspects such as the characteristics, content, and functions of competition policies and antimonopoly law provisions in regional integration agreements. By means of a survey of regional integration agreements, we ascertain that with regard to their substantive provisions and their procedural provisions, two types exist in parallel: a type with strong functions for promoting the enactment of legislation and promoting their sharing by the participating countries, and a weak type that lacks these functions. Through this we can see that the regional integration format can combine the characteristics both of the bilateral agreement format and the multilateral agreement format. In addition, the process of regional integration can be understood as being that as the degree of integration increases, there is a progressive adoption of common competition policy and antimonopoly law and of central executive institutions, the more so when the integration is between developed nations. However, even in cases of integration between developed countries in which the degree of integration is advanced, there are some that try to maintain a high degree of commonality of competition policy and antimonopoly law provisions among the participating countries, without going so far as to have central executive institutions or common antimonopoly law provisions, while even in cases of integration by developing countries there are some that endeavor to adopt a form in which they have common antimonopoly law and other provisions. This paper further examines the characteristics of competition policies and antimonopoly law provisions in regional collaboration pacts and other agreements that Japan has concluded. Based on the above analysis of the background, content, administration, and other aspects of integration, it is possible to make meaningful suggestions as to the wealth of possibilities for the desirable forms that competition policy and antimonopoly law provisions should take in cases of regional integration, and as to the desirable forms of such provisions in cases of regional integration in which Japan is involved.