Expanding the P-4 Trade Agreement into a Broader Trans-Pacific Partnership: Implications, Risks and Opportunities
In 2005, New Zealand, Singapore, Chile and Brunei entered into a path-breaking free trade agreement, the Trans-Pacific Strategic Economic Partnership Agreement which is also known as the P-4 Agreement. The agreement contains an open accession provision which explicitly contemplates the expansion of the agreement to include other countries willing to commit to its terms. The expansion of the agreement has important implications for the world trading system. Its broad coverage and open accession provision may suggest that the agreement has the potential to serve as a stepping stone in the path towards further multilateral trade liberalization in the WTO context. On the other hand, expanding the agreement could result in an agreement so powerful that its members no longer consider devoting energies to liberalizing in the WTO context to be of great importance. The article explores some of the unique aspects of the TPP as well as the potential implications of expanding the agreement, both for the East Asian region and for the broader multilateral trading system.
China's WTO Accession and the ASEAN--China Free Trade Area: The Perspective of a Chinese Lawyer
China's accession to the World Trade Organization (WTO) augurs well for the country's full integration with the world economy. It also greatly extends the horizon of China's regional economic co-operation and lends support to Asia's economic integration. China and ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations) are negotiating a free trade agreement (ACFTA) to be accomplished by 2010. As an initial step, they finalized the Framework Agreement for the ACFTA in Cambodia on 4 November 2002. For China, the ACFTA means new responsibilities. It has to make another major long-term commitment to a further opening of the door to ASEAN, on top of WTO requirements. The Chinese aspiration for an ACFTA mirrors its changing perception of globalization, with China's accession to the WTO serving as the catalyst. Nevertheless, some long-standing unsettled issues will continue to test its wisdom and magnanimity; the formulation of the ACFTA will not be a swift and smooth process, but rather a gradual one. Yet mutual interests between the two sides are likely to finally overcome the difficulties looming before the proposed ACFTA. The ACFTA will materialize and bring China and its Southeast Asian neighbors closer than ever before. Copyright 2004, Oxford University Press.
Do patents work for public health?
Q: Why did the CIPIH fail to deliver its report on time in 2005? A: The CIPIH had to deal with a very difficult issue: how to promote the development of medicines for diseases prevailing in developing countries. These diseases are neglected in industry’s R&D (research and development) budgets because selling medicines to treat them is not profitable enough. The CIPIH chose to cover issues ranging from drug discovery to delivery in the report. This broad coverage — which I personally did not favour — led to the considera ation of many issues that were not cena tral to the commission’s mandate and for which reliable evidence is limited, such as industry donations of drug compounds. There were also important differences of opinion among the coma missioners that led to a lack of depth in the analysis of some critical issues, such as the differential impact of patents in developed and developing countries and in the report’s recommendations.