In April 1998 negotiations were launched to create a free trade area among 34 countries in the western hemisphere. The Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) was designed to eliminate barriers to trade in goods and services and to remove restrictions on investment among the countries of North, Central and South America and the Caribbean. Trade policymakers are confronted with a wide range of complex issues and various forums for trade liberalization. Modern trade negotiations no longer focus only on barriers to trade in goods, but include a wide array of issues. This volume seeks to clarify these issues. Contributors first address themes, including the evolution of regional arrangements in the western hemisphere and the relationship between regional trade arrangements and the multilateral trading system. Robert Hudec provides an in-depth analysis of the provisions and future implications of Article XXIV, the WTO article that regulates regional arrangements; Robert Lawrence examines regional arrangements and their relationship to the multilateral trading system; and Miguel Rodriguez Mendoza tests several Latin American arrangements to see whether they comply with the WTO criteria.
Other contributors discuss key components of the trade policy agenda, including market access approaches, trade in services, investment, competition policy, intellectual property rights, trade remedy laws, and dispute settlement. Also examined are smaller economies in trade negotiations, and labour and the environment. The book is designed to serve both as an analytical examination of regionalism and multilateralism and as a primer for international trade negotiators.