Regional Trade Agreements in the WTO System: Potential Issues and Solutions

• Author: Yong Shik Lee
• Pages: 353-354

RTA & WTO 353

VIII JEAIL 2 (2015)

Yong Shik Lee

∗

In the international trading system today, regional trade agreements, referring to

reciprocal trade agreements between two or more countries providing exclusive trade

preferences, govern not only the trade relations among the parties to the RTAs, but

also form additional sets of trade disciplines. These agreements exist parallel to the

multilateral trading system under the auspices of the World Trade Organization. The

GATT/WTO rules authorize RTAs under certain conditions; thus on the surface,

RTAs appear to be a legitimate part of the WTO system. However, in substance, the

 

principle of the WTO system, the most-favored-nation treatment. The current

proliferation of RTAs thus makes exclusive RTA preferences, which are supposedly an

exception to the MFN principle, a rule rather than an exception. This article examines

      

WTO system with potential solutions, and analyzes RTAs from the development

perspective.

Keywords

Regional Trade Agreements, Multilateral Trading System, World Trade

Organization, Developing Countries.

∗ Director of the Law and Development Institute and Distinguished Scholar in Residence, Emory University School of

Law. A.B.(Berkeley), B.A./M.A./Ph.D. (Cantab). The author is grateful to Ms. Livia Popp, graduate student at Babes-

Bolyai University, for research assistance. The author may be contacted at: yslee@lawanddevelopment.net / Address:

Emory University School of Law, 1301 Clifton Road, Atlanta, GA 30322 USA.

DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.14330/jeail.2015.8.2.03

Regional Trade Agreements

in the WTO System:

Potential Issues and Solutions