Mega-regional negotiations: towards a new form of governance in world trade

Since the early 2010s, and with particular intensity in recent months, a number of far-reaching trade negotiations have been in the works worldwide. Among them are a Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership agreement between the United States and the European Union; a Free Trade Agreement between the European Union and Japan; a Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership among the 10 member countries of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), Australia, India, New Zealand, China, Japan and the Republic of Korea; and a Free Trade Agreement among the latter three countries. These four processes (formally launched in 2013), come on top of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) negotiations under way since 2010 encompassing 12 countries of Latin America, North America, Asia and Oceania. All of these initiatives —referred to in the literature as mega-regional or mega-bilateral negotiations— are expected to have a profound impact on the global trade and investment architecture in the coming decades, especially in view of the continued impasse at the World Trade Organization (WTO) Doha Round.

Related Subject(s): Economic and Social Development