scholarly journals ENVIRONMENTAL CONCERN UNDER INDONESIA’S PREFERENTIAL TRADE AGREEMENTS (PTAs)

2019 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 186
Author(s):  
I Gusti Ngurah Parikesit Widiatedja
Keyword(s):  
International Trade ◽  
Environmental Concern ◽  
Trade Agreements ◽  
Preferential Trade Agreements ◽  
Protective Measure ◽  
Environmental Harm ◽  
International Treaties ◽  
Preferential Trade ◽  
Multilateral Trade ◽  
The Right

<p>International trade has resulted positive impacts, such as alleviating poverty and increasing jobs. All countries then start concluding trade agreements multilaterally, regionally and bilaterally. The existence of preferential trade agreements is increasingly significant due to the deadlock of multilateral trade agreements. Although providing benefits, international trade has adversely affected environment. Some international treaties suggest how countries should include environmental concern in their PTAs. Unlike traditional PTAs, most of modern PTAs have incorporated environmental concern, reconciling the goal of trade liberalization and environmental protection. In Indonesia, there is a link between international trade and environmental harm. This article aims to show the existing Indonesia’s PTAs, analysing how Indonesia has put, and how it should put environmental concern in its PTAs. This article argues that only a few Indonesia’s PTAs have incorporated environmental concern in their provisions. Moreover, when they include environmental concern, there is no further elaboration on how this process should be undertaken. Compare to other existing PTAs, Indonesia should start incorporating environmental concern in its PTAs, and then allow the right of government to impose protective measure in order to preserve environment. </p>

The Law and Political Economy of International Trade Agreements

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Trebilcock
Keyword(s):  
Developing Countries ◽  
International Trade ◽  
Free Trade ◽  
Comparative Advantage ◽  
Trade Agreements ◽  
Developed Countries ◽  
Preferential Trade Agreements ◽  
Preferential Trade ◽  
Multilateral Trade ◽  
Wide Range

While economists overwhelmingly favor free trade, even unilateral free trade, because of the gains realizable from specialization and the exploitation of comparative advantage, in fact international trading relations are structured by a complex body of multilateral and preferential trade agreements. The article outlines the case for multilateral trade agreements and the non-discrimination principle that they embody, in the form of both the Most Favored Nation principle and the National Treatment principle, where non-discrimination has been widely advocated as supporting both geopolitical goals (reducing economic factionalism) and economic goals (ensuring the full play of theories of comparative advantage undistorted by discriminatory trade treatment). Despite the virtues of multilateral trade agreements, preferential trade agreements (PTAs), authorized from the outset under GATT, have proliferated in recent years, even though they are inherently discriminatory between members and non-members, provoking vigorous debates as to whether (a) PTAs are trade-creating or trade-diverting; (b) whether they increase transaction costs in international trade; and (c) whether they undermine the future course of multilateral trade liberalization. A further and similarly contentious derogation from the principle of non-discrimination under the multilateral system is Special and Differential Treatment for developing countries, where since the mid-1950s developing countries have been given much greater latitude than developed countries to engage in trade protectionism on the import side in order to promote infant industries, and since the mid-1960s on the export side have benefited from non-reciprocal trade concessions by developed countries on products of actual or potential export interest to developing countries. Beyond debates over the strengths and weaknesses of multilateral trade agreements and the two major derogations therefrom, further debates surround the appropriate scope of trade agreements, and in particular the expansion of their scope in recent decades to address divergences or incompatibilities across a wide range of domestic regulatory and related policies that arguably create frictions in cross-border trade and investment and hence constitute an impediment to it. The article goes on to consider contemporary fair trade versus free trade debates, including concerns over trade deficits, currency manipulation, export subsidies, misappropriation of intellectual property rights, and lax labor or environmental standards. The article concludes with a consideration of the case for a larger scope for plurilateral trade agreements internationally, and for a larger scope for active labor market policies domestically to mitigate transition costs from trade.

Preferential Trade Agreements as Stumbling Blocks for Multilateral Trade Liberalization: Evidence for the United States

2006 ◽  
Vol 96 (3) ◽  
pp. 896-914 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nuno Limão
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Trade Liberalization ◽  
Trade Agreements ◽  
The United States ◽  
Preferential Trade Agreements ◽  
Detailed Data ◽  
Preferential Trade ◽  
Multilateral Trade ◽  
Multilateral Trade Liberalization ◽  
Tariff Reductions

Most countries are members of preferential trade agreements (PTAs). The effect of these agreements has attracted much interest and raised the question of whether PTAs promote or slow multilateral trade liberalization, i.e., whether they are a “building block” or “stumbling block” to multilateral liberalization. Despite this long-standing concern with PTAs and the lack of theoretical consensus, there is no systematic evidence on whether they are actually a stumbling block to multilateral liberalization. We use detailed data on U.S. multilateral tariffs to provide the first systematic evidence that the direct effect of PTAs was to generate a stumbling block to its MTL. We also provide evidence of reciprocity in multilateral tariff reductions.

Challenged in Geneva: WTO Litigation Experience and the Design of Preferential Trade Agreements

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-20
Author(s):  
Simon Wüthrich ◽  
Manfred Elsig
Keyword(s):  
World Trade Organization ◽  
World Trade ◽  
International Institutions ◽  
Trade Agreements ◽  
Preferential Trade Agreements ◽  
Trade Disputes ◽  
Preferential Trade ◽  
Multilateral Trade ◽  
Track Record ◽  
The World

Abstract What explains the design of international institutions? Existing research has largely neglected how experience in cooperation in one set of international institutions impacts on design choices made by states in other globally-oriented institutions. We contribute to this evolving debate by analyzing spillovers in experience in international trade. We argue that countries' track record of interaction in multilateral trade disputes affects the design of their preferential trade agreements (PTAs). If a country participates in a complaint against a prospective PTA partner at the World Trade Organization (WTO), the challenge in Geneva alerts the defendant's import-competing industries with respect to potential challenges under the planned PTA. As a result, these industries exert pressure on their government to preserve leeway under the future treaty, leading to increased flexibility and a lower level of enforcement in the PTA. We find support for our hypotheses in an empirical analysis of 347 PTAs concluded post 1990.

scholarly journals Is the WTO Passé?

2016 ◽  
Vol 54 (4) ◽  
pp. 1125-1231 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kyle Bagwell ◽  
Chad P. Bown ◽  
Robert W. Staiger
Keyword(s):  
International Trade ◽  
Trade Liberalization ◽  
Strong Support ◽  
Trade Agreements ◽  
Preferential Trade Agreements ◽  
Policy Outcomes ◽  
Preferential Trade ◽  
International Trade Agreements ◽  
Economics Literature ◽  
Hand Off

The WTO has delivered policy outcomes that are very different from those likely to emerge out of the recent wave of preferential trade agreements (PTAs). Should economists see this as an efficient institutional hand-off, where the WTO has carried trade liberalization as far as it can manage, and is now passing the baton to PTAs to finish the job? We survey a growing economics literature on international trade agreements and argue on this basis that the WTO is not passé. Rather, and subject to some caveats, our survey of research to date suggests that the WTO warrants strong support while a more cautious view of PTAs seems appropriate. (JEL F13, F14, K33, N70)

scholarly journals Renaissance of Protectionism as a Concept of Economic Policy: Theoretical and Applied Aspects

2020 ◽  
Vol 20 (4) ◽  
pp. 366-373
Author(s):  
Kseniya V. Mokhnatkina ◽  
◽  
Nataliia V. Naidenova ◽  
Anna Y. Shkryabina ◽  
◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Economic Policy ◽  
International Trade ◽  
Foreign Trade ◽  
Trade Policy ◽  
National Economy ◽  
Trade Agreements ◽  
Preferential Trade Agreements ◽  
Foreign Trade Policy ◽  
Preferential Trade

Introduction. Changes in the balance of power in the global economy, the increasing role of the Asia-Pacific countries in international trade, the consequences of the global crisis of 2008–2009 led to a revision of foreign trade policy by both developed and developing countries, to an increased application of protective measures of national economy. Theoretical analysis. State economic policy aimed at protecting and realizing the interests of the national economy is protectionism in a broad sense. In a narrow sense, protectionism is considered as a foreign trade policy. The use of historical and logical methods in the study of the foreign trade policy of protectionism made it possible to identify the main stages of its development and the characteristics of each stage. Empirical analysis. The study analyzes the dynamics of the current and financial accounts of the balance of payments of Russia and the largest participants in international trade, shows the degree of their dependence on international trade and their vulnerability to the strengthening of protectionist measures. The article substantiates the need for Russia to pursue a policy of neo-protectionism, stimulate the generation of its own value chains and join regional chains, and actively participate in regional and preferential trade agreements. Results. At the new stage of the foreign trade policy of protectionism, its measures became more hidden, and the role of customs duties faded into the background. The desire to reduce non-tariff barriers, protect intellectual property rights, remove restrictions associated with manipulating the exchange rate, encourage regional integration, the conclusion of preferential trade agreements. In the future, having fulfilled a progressive role, regional and preferential agreements can be transformed into multilateral ones. The creation of a mechanism for such a transformation may become a new function of the reformed WTO.

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