Chapter 7 is the conclusion and consolidates ideas and findings. This chapter calls for and reflects on the possibility of a more transparent and fair anti-dumping system for all WTO members achieved by promoting procedural justice. It also considers the significance of the findings of the book for international trade law discourse more generally by relating them to contemporary trade issues such as the US–China trade war, Brexit, the WTO crisis and mega free trade agreements.

The chapter provides an overview of US agreements with Asia. It first assesses the Asia polices of Presidents Obama, Trump and Biden and their key trade pacts with Asia-Pacific countries. The chapter also discusses the China challenge in the new era of President Xi Jinping and US measures that resulted in the US-China trade war. Moreover, it examines security and economic initiatives that underpin the ASEAN-US strategic partnership, as well as landmark features of the TPP and the subsequent CPTPP. Finally, the chapter proposes a two-pronged roadmap for the Biden administration to reassert US leadership in new Asian regionalism. The roadmap calls for the White House to prioritize accession to the CPTPP and to transform the TIFA to the ASEAN-US FTA, which allows for flexible participation by ASEAN countries.

This chapter compares the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPP) with the Australia -- United States Free Trade Agreement (AUSFTA), reflecting on relevant developments in the Australia -- United States relationship, including with respect to agriculture and biologic medicines. The chapter focuses on the Chapters on services and investment, addressing areas such as electronic commerce, investor--state dispute settlement (ISDS), and the "carve-out" of tobacco control measures from ISDS in the TPP. The comparison of investment in the two treaties is particularly of interest given the exclusion of ISDS in the AUSFTA and its inclusion (except as between Australia and New Zealand) in the TPP. We conclude that the TPP is a more modern agreement than the AUSFTA with several improvements that provide greater regulatory policy space. However, the inclusion of ISDS as between Australia and the United States in the TPP is questionable.

Much has changed since CompuServe introduced its “Electronic Mall” as the first major retail e-commerce platform in 1984. Digital technologies have driven down costs and improved access and opportunities for producers and consumers, manufacturers and farmers, and above all, users. Digital technologies have transformed how a large part of the global economy operates. A broad range of goods are now digital and thereby intangible, being made up of bytes. Likewise, many services that previously required costly face-to-face contact between the firm and consumer are now available remotely.

Technology has opened international trade – in the form of e-commerce – to a broad range of firms and sectors that beforehand would have been the sole domain of larger multinational companies. Most importantly, technology and the Internet reduced the transaction costs and information asymmetries associated with international trade. Social networks like Facebook and Twitter and search engines like Google and Bing give large and small businesses alike easy ways to advertise services to people around the world.

Tariff liberalization has been a centrepiece of all trade negotiations since the early inception of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) in 1948 to the current framework of the World Trade Organization (WTO), and under all Regional Trade Agreements (RTAs) such as the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP).

It was early in the morning of October 5, 2015 when the trade ministers of twelve countries announced in Atlanta, Georgia, the successful conclusion of a seven-year, extremely complex negotiating effort known as the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPP). The TPP was formally signed four months after its conclusion, on February 4, 2016, in Auckland, New Zealand, apparently heralding a new momentum for international trade and investment liberalization.

State-owned enterprises (“SOEs”) – that is, entities in which a government or the State has some form of direct or indirect ownership or control – occupy an increasingly important share of the global economy and international commerce. SOEs commonly operate like, and therefore can be considered in much the same way as, any other enterprise in either national or international markets. However, to the extent that they are controlled by a State, SOEs may pursue government policy objectives, rather than, or in addition to, the strictly commercial interests of the enterprise itself.2 Moreover, a State’s investment in an SOE can create incentives for the State to give preferential treatment to the SOE when compared to other economic actors. Given these dynamics, the presence of SOEs in a given market potentially generates a range of issues for governments and for actual or potential competitors of the SOE.

This chapter seeks to analyze the level of commitment assumed by the TPP signatory countries in the area of Trade Facilitation (TF), taking the WTO Trade Facilitation Agreement (TFA) as a benchmark, whilst analyzing the implications of both instruments for governments and traders.

The author provides a background to the concept of TF and its evolution. Then he identifies key areas where the TPP upgraded the TFA, including express shipments; prohibition of consular transactions; streamlining of border procedures, including time for release, and single window, in line with international standards; automation; government-to-government electronic sharing of data; availability of practical information for users; advance rulings; and a more feasible framework for customs cooperation.

To assess the level of "upgrade," the author provides an in-depth analysis of the key aspects of both instruments, based on three main areas: (1) support for development; (2) overall approach: "customs-only implementation" versus "coordinated border management" (CBM); and (3) key TF measures and practical implications. The last section provides some conclusions that suggest future work on TF that could be explored in the context of the TPP and future RTAs.

After several years of negotiations, twelve Pacific Rim countries signed, in February 2016, the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), which is one of the highest profile Preferential Trade Agreements (PTAs) of the last decade. After US withdrawal in January 2017, a revised “Comprehensive and Progressive TPP” was signed by the other eleven negotiating Parties in March 2018. The CPTPP makes no modifications to the original Chapter 2 so the chapter remains in its entirety applicable to relations among the Parties. References in the chapter are to the original TPP unless context requires otherwise. Annex 2-D of the TPP is comprised of hundreds of pages of carefully negotiated tariff commitments that are accompanied by many chapters that seek to regulate measures such as trade remedies, sanitary and phytosanitary measures, technical barriers to trade, competition policy, state-owned enterprises and electronic commerce. Together, these provisions were part of a complex framework that sought to ensure that the agreed tariff elimination would not be undermined or nullified by other measures. However, the TPP was designed to be more than just a traditional trade deal.

In order to start the analysis of the Telecommunications chapter in the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), it is fundamental, as a first step, to understand the reasons why a plurilateral agreement among twelve countries, whose main objective is to address trade-related issues, includes a specific chapter on Telecommunications.

Although there is no single answer to this question, it is possible to develop some reasons that support the inclusion of this chapter in the TPP.

The global economy is in the midst of the Services Revolution, which is having as dramatic an effect on our work life and daily life as the Industrial Revolution 100–150 years ago. Services make the world go around, for consumers, businesses, and governments.

Just think of your daily routine. First thing in the morning, you wake up knowing that your family was safe because of the electronic security service that was monitoring everything while you slept, from the locks on your doors to the carbon monoxide in the garage. Then you probably check your e-mail, the football or cricket results, and the headlines from the Financial Times on your smartphone service. If you drive to work, you require car insurance; if you take the subway or bus, life insurance. On the way to the office, you stop at your favorite coffee bar for your breakfast. At the office, you put the box of that birthday tie return in the express delivery pick-up box. A quick check online of your bank balance. Then you place calls to everyone who left you voicemails overnight, using one of the international telecommunications services.

One of the concerns surrounding state-owned enterprises (SOEs) in the international trade context is that they may acquire a competitive edge through “hidden subsidies or other advantages that would not be available to private firms.” The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) report exemplifies the advantages that SOEs can enjoy. These are (a) outright subsidization, such as the creation of favorable tax regimes or conferring of in-kind benefits; (b) concessionary financing and guarantees, e.g. granting of credit at below-market interest rates; (c) other preferential treatment by governments, including exemptions from antitrust enforcement and building permit regulations; (d) monopolies and the advantages of incumbency; (e) captive equity, namely, the advantages that SOEs may enjoy thanks to the inability of their owners to transfer ownership rights; and (f) exemption from bankruptcy rules and information advantages. Through such means, SOEs may gain a competitive advantage merely by virtue of their state-owned status.

TPP’s importance lingers notwithstanding cries that it is ‘dead’ following the Trump Administration’s withdrawal. In practice, treaty convergence – even sheer mimicry - occurs. One might think of that as being akin to procuring a live organ transplant.The analogy is inexact.Even long dead treaties and treaty clauses can be organ donors.The TPP investment text ushered in some fascinating new clauses.They delegate to tribunals not only the task of resolving disputes, but also that of imagining, fashioning, and applying appropriate standards of social protection. In an earlier paper, I called TPP an exercise in ‘prescriptive neutrality’. This chapter returns to that argument.

This chapter examines whether and to what extent emerging countries may be able to engage in alternative approaches to trade regulation among themselves and in their relations to developed economies. It shows that liberal orthodoxy is in retrenchment. It documents the reservations that many emerging powers have about the neoliberal approach, and shows the conflict between some trade rules and state-led development strategies (“developmentalism”). In some areas, emerging powers are resisting liberalization pressures by ignoring certain existing rules, refusing to agree to others, and seeking to create alternative orderings with more flexible standards. However, there is not always consensus within key countries about trade and development policy. They have differences on many aspects of liberalization, and there are limits to their capacity to create alternative economic spaces. While resistance from the South and rising protectionism in the North have stalled the liberalization drive, leaving trade law more open to developmentalism for now, the South has not developed the kind of strong ideological consensus and strategic coordination needed to fundamentally alter the trade regime. Countries are guided by pragmatism and divergent national interests.