Preferential Trade Agreements A Law and Economics Analysis

This volume assembles a stellar group of scholars and experts to examine preferential trade agreements (PTAs), a topic that has time and again attracted the interest of analysts. It presents a discussion of the evolving economic analysis regarding PTAs and the various dysfunctions that continually place them among the priority items for (re)negotiation by the WTO. The book explores recent empirical research that casts doubt on the old 'trade diversion' school and debates why the WTO should deal with PTAs and if PTAs belong under the mandate of the WTO as we now know it.

1. Preferential trading agreements: friend or foe? L. Alan Winters; 2. The legalization of GATT Article XXIV - can foes become friends? James H. Mathis; 3. Third country effects of regional trade agreements Caroline Freund; 4. Contingent protection rules in regional trade agreements Thomas J. Prusa and Robert Teh; 5. Commentary on Prusa/Teh, contingent protection rules in regional trade agreements David A. Gantz; 6. The limits of PTAs: WTO legal restrictions on the use of WTO-plus standards regulation in PTAs Joel P. Trachtman; 7. Beyond the WTO? an anatomy of EU and US preferential trade agreements Henrik Horn, Petros C. Mavroidis and André Sapir; 8. Straightening the spaghetti bowl Gary N. Horlick; 9. Comments on 'Beyond the WTO? Coverage and legal inflation in EU and US preferential trade agreements' by Horn, Mavroidis and Sapir Nuno Limão; 10. Labour clauses in EU preferential trade agreements - an analysis of the Cotonou Partnership agreement Jeff Kenner; 11. Do PTAs actually increase parties' services trade? Juan A. Marchetti; 12. A model Article XXIV: are there realistic possibilities to improve it? William J. Davey; 13. Comments on 'A model Article XXIV: are there realistic possibilities to improve it?' by William Davey T. N. Srinivasan.

Kyle W. Bagwell is the Donald L. Lucas Professor of Economics at Stanford University. Professor Bagwell was a reporter for the American Law Institute in its study Principles of International Trade: The WTO. He serves as well as a Research Associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research (International Trade Program). In his research, Professor Bagwell uses economic analysis to interpret and evaluate the design of the WTO. He is a Fellow of the Econometric Society.
Petros C. Mavroidis is the Edwin B. Parker Professor of Law at Columbia Law School, New York. He also serves as Professor of Law at the University of Neuchâtel and is Research Fellow at the Centre for Economic Policy Research (CEPR), London. He specializes in the law and the WTO and serves as the Legal Advisor to the WTO in the Technical Cooperation Division, where he assists developing countries in WTO dispute settlement proceedings. He was also the chief co-reporter of the American Law Institute project Principles of International Trade: The WTO.