Registration is FREE but pre-registration
is required. Register today! 8.1 CLE MO
is required. Register today! 8.1 CLE MO
» Overview
» View Schedule
| Time | Session | Presenters |
|---|---|---|
| 8:30 AM | Registration |
|
| 9:00 AM | Introductions and Welcome |
Jeffrey E. Lewis Dean, Saint Louis University School of Law |
| 9:15 AM | Session one |
Moderator |
Recent RTAs in a Legal, Economic and Political Context |
Constance Z. Wagner Associate Professor of Law, Saint Louis University School of Law |
|
Regional Trade Agreements at the Crossroad: Interdisciplinary Reflections |
Armand de Mestral Jean Monnet Chair in the Law of International Economic Integration and Co-Director of the Institute of European Studies, McGill-Université de Montréal |
|
| This article attempts to stimulate a discussion on the economic, legal and factual status quo of RTAs. The purpose of this article is three-fold: first, to review certain developments in the proliferation of RTAs around the world; second, to offer a comparative legal and economic analysis of major concerns that RTAs pose; third, to highlight the need to recognize and critically examine the link between the various factors that contribute in the proliferation of RTAs. The first part of this article summarizes the history of the proliferation of RTAs, and maps the RTAs that have recently been negotiated in all parts of the world. The second part demonstrates the economic theory of RTAs, and reviews different opinions on the economic impacts of them on the global economy. Finally, the third part identifies major legal issues posed by the proliferation of RTAs and discusses how the WTO and its panels dealt with those issues. |
||
The “Bipartisan Trade Deal” and the Future of U.S. Free Trade Agreements
|
David A. Gantz Samuel M. Fegtly Professor of Law and Director, International Trade Law and Business Law, University of Arizona, Rogers College of Law |
|
| In May 2007, the Bush Administration and the Democratic Congressional leadership reached an accommodation on decade-long disagreements over the content of U.S. FTAs. The "Bipartisan Trade Deal" has resulted in significant changes in FTA language in matters relating to labor, the environment, investment, intellectual property, government procurement and port security, with the major focus on labor and the environment. The result was approval of the FTA with Peru at the end of 2007 (but not those concluded with Peru, Colombia and South Korea). Democratic (and some Republican) support for these and any new regional trade agreements remains problematic. The Democratic Congress has refused to renew President Bush's "Trade Negotiating Authority," which expired June 30, 2007, making it difficult for the U.S. to participate meaningfully in now-stalled efforts to conclude the Doha Development Round of global trade negotiations, or to pursue additional FTAs. This presentation will focus on the scope of the trade policy disputes between the major political parties, the Bipartisan Trade Deal, the implementation of the Deal, and the implications for future U.S. leadership in concluding regional trade agreements. | ||
Measurement and the Metrics of Regionalism: Experience with the WTO RTA Transparency Mechanism |
Chi C. Carmody Associate Professor and Canadian Director, Canada-United States Law Institute, University of Western Ontario School of Law |
|
| The approval of a Transparency Mechanism for regional trade agreements by the membership of the World Trade Organization in December 2006 raised important questions as to why the Transparency Mechanism is necessary and what specific functions it is designed to serve.1 Given the debate over regional trade agreements and the WTO Agreement recently, it is surprising that not more attention has been paid to this innovation and to its potential consequences for RTAs in the global trading system. This paper proposes to examine the WTO Transparency Mechanism and its experience as a means of trying to get at a number of the unanswered questions surrounding the accommodation of RTAs in the WTO system and some idea of what can be realistically achieved with it. 1. Transparency Mechanism for Regional Trade Agreements, WT/L/671 (18 Dec. 2006). |
||
Decay of Commercial Multilateralism in South America |
Jorge Perez Professor of Law and International Studies, Universidad Central de Venezuela |
|
| The free trade agreement between Colombia and the United States of America, the Common Market of the South (MERCOSUR in Spanish) and the Bolivarian Alternative for the people of Latin America (ALBA in Spanish), provides three different models that control the interactions between local and transnational actors involved in the trade between the people of South America and the rest of the world. Each one of these models will have impacts that emerge from a complexity of factors. The purposes of this article are related to environmental, social and politic consequences of each model. | ||
| 11:30 AM | Lunch and Presentation by Keynote Speaker Irving A. Williamson Commissioner, United States International Trade Commission |
|
FTAs, Development and National Economic Interest: |
||
| Presentation to focus on the importance of both developing and developed countries having a process for determining what is and what is not in their development and economic interest when they negotiate an FTA or any trade agreement. Mr. Williamson will discuss how U.S. trade legislation tries to handle this process and the role that the USITC plays in it. He will also touch on the broader challenges and opportunities for economic development presented by FTAs. | ||
| 1:00 PM | Session two |
Moderator |
Implications of RTAs: Issues of Social Justice, Development, and Human Rights |
David L. Sloss Professor of Law Saint Louis University School of Law |
|
Free Trade Agreements and Sound Justice |
Raj K. Bhala Rice Distinguished Professor, The University of Kansas School of Law |
|
| What would international trade law, particularly free trade agreements (FTAs) of the United States, look like if the dominant paradigm for their negotiation, drafting, implementation, and enforcement shifted from economics to equal human dignity? The concept of equal human dignity has deep philosophical roots, including in the work of the great philosopher of the late Enlightenment, Immanuel Kant. The Categorical Imperative for which Kant (among other insights) is renowned helps define the concept. Further, the American legal philosopher, John Rawls, offers a formula to elaborate and apply the Categorical Imperative. The concept also has theological roots, including in Roman Catholic social justice theory. Considered literally, the words suggest specific criteria for trade accords. “Human” intimates neutrality. “Equal” indicates non-discrimination. “Dignity” suggests respect for the excellent. Applying these criteria to America’s FTAs not only is possible, but also yields specific proposals for human, labor, and environmental rights that could – and perhaps should – be advanced through those FTAs. Moreover, these criteria mandate a change in negotiating style. To be sure, changing the FTA paradigm to one in which equal human dignity predominates would require further careful consideration of efficiency trade-offs, legal capacity, sovereign state responsibility, managed trade policy, and trade remedies. |
||
Regionalism: The Second Best Option? |
Cherie O. Taylor Professor of Law, South Texas College of Law |
|
| Regional agreements continue to grow at a pace exceeding that of the GATT era at a time when it is unclear whether multilateralism can deliver. There is a marked turning away from traditional regional groupings, such as NAFTA and MERCOSUR, towards the adoption of bilateral agreements. The largest proportion of the newer agreements are connected to the U.S. and EU, are between developed and developing countries and are free trade agreements – the type of regionalism that allows for the most flexibility in design and coverage. This article will focus on the design and context of the newer U.S. free trade agreements and the politics underlying the major negotiating issues as developing countries increasingly pursue regionalism as “the second best option”. Specifically, it will examine asymmetries in negotiating power and implementation capacity between developed and developing countries, what the focus on a bilateral trade agreement strategy means for the overall U.S. commitment to multilateralism, and what options, if any, the WTO has in its relationship with regionalism. |
||
Looking at Regional Trade Agreements through the Lens of Gender Analysis |
Constance Z. Wagner Associate Professor of Law, Saint Louis University School of Law |
|
| Gender issues are not currently addressed in international trade law. However, in recent years, some trade economists and policy analysts have noted the gender-differentiated impacts of trade policy and treaty law and called for increased attention to this issue. This article will examine gender as a category of analysis with respect to several regional trade agreements involving the U.S., especially in the areas of investment, services, and agriculture. It will also suggest a model for mainstreaming gender within regional trade agreements. | ||
| 2:30 PM | Break | |
| 3:00 PM | Session Three |
Moderator |
Implications of RTAs: Environmental, Labor, and Other Social Issues |
Douglas R. Williams Professor of Law, Saint Louis University School of Law |
|
Environmental Protection in Regional Trade Agreements: Realizing the Potential |
Sanford E. Gaines Research Professor of Law and Director, The Utton Transboundary Resources Center, University of New Mexico School of Law |
|
| There are four salient concerns about the environmental effects of liberalized trade: regulatory effects, competitiveness effects, scale effects, and composition effects. The regulatory effects of trade are virtually nonexistent, and the other effects are attributable more to economic policy in general, not trade specifically. In principle and in practice, RTAs are no worse, but no better, than multilateral agreements with respect to the environmental consequences of the basic terms of the agreements. The negotiation of an RTA, however, presents a special opportunity to strengthen environmental protection programs among the parties. The challenge is to realize that potential. This depends on two broad factors: mutuality of environmental interest and the political will of the parties. The prime example of a positive combination of these factors is the EC, where environmental protection has advanced in tandem with the growing political robustness of the European Union. The NAFTA parties eschewed the “deep” integration of Europe, but the politics of NAFTA gave a strong political impetus to environmental cooperation, though the political will has faltered of late in all three countries. US-CAFTA shows moderate political will, and modest promise. In other US RTAs, environmental elements were confined to the defensive (trade-related) issues, with little or no initiative for active environmental cooperation. In sum, international environmental cooperation depends on and benefits from an emphasis on the environmental reality of the cooperating countries. The greatest environmental gains have come about through institutions and procedures that have no direct connection to trade or the trade agreements that initially spawned them. |
||
Regional Trade Agreements and Labor Liberalization: (Lost) Opportunities for Experimentation? |
Karen E. Bravo Assistant Professor of Law, Indiana University School of Law – Indianapolis |
|
| This article addresses labor liberalization in the context of regional trade agreements. It examines the approaches to labor liberalization in the CARICOM, MERCOSUR, NAFTA and DR-CAFTA regional trade agreements, and asks whether the approaches adopted in those regional agreements betray the ideals and purposes of trade liberalization. The article will also identify the economic, social and political reasons for and consequences of the failure to address labor issues within the context of regional trading agreements. | ||
Trade and the Environment After NAFTA: Where Do We Go from Here? |
Chris Wold Associate Professor of Law and Director, International Environmental Law Project, Lewis & Clark Law School of Law |
|
| This article assesses the failed replication of NAFTA’s environmental side agreement, the North American Agreement on Environmental Cooperation (NAAEC), into subsequent regional free trade agreements. The NAAEC, widely regarded as innovative, includes its own international institution, the Commission for Environmental Cooperation (CEC) designed not only to address trade-environment linkages, but also to coordinate environmental policy throughout North America. It also includes a process that allows citizens to make allegations that a NAAEC party is failing to enforce environmental law effectively. The initial achievement to establish the NAAEC, however, has masked its relatively modest achievements and thwarted questions about what we want to achieve with trade-environment linkages. Despite some clear environmental successes, the NAAEC has fallen short of comprehensively addressing trade-environment issues largely due to its inherent structural flaws. Nonetheless, the United States has incorporated its central components into subsequent FTAs without recognizing that the NAAEC was a specific response to U.S.–Mexico border concerns—concerns that are not necessarily relevant to other FTAs. While some modifications to the NAAEC model have been made, they have been relatively minor and reflect a reactionary political effort by the United States to seize control of trade-environment matters and limit independent assessment of those issues. While some changes have been included in subsequent FTAs, they have been minor and none of the changes reflect any real attempt to individualize the environmental needs of the US’s trading partners. This article concludes that the model created in the NAAEC has impaired the creation of suitable institutions and mechanisms to address trade-environment issues within subsequent FTAs. |
||
| 4:30 PM | Conference Concludes |
|
