The European Union, Preferential Trade Agreements, and the International Regulation of Sustainable Biofuels

2015 ◽  
Vol 54 (2) ◽  
pp. 249-266 ◽  
Author(s):  
Arlo Poletti ◽  
Daniela Sicurelli
Keyword(s):  
European Union ◽  
Trade Agreements ◽  
Preferential Trade Agreements ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Preferential Trade ◽  
International Regulation

scholarly journals Transatlantic convergence of preferential trade agreements environmental clauses

2017 ◽  
Vol 19 (4) ◽  
pp. 621-658 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jean-Frédéric Morin ◽  
Myriam Rochette
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
European Union ◽  
Trade Agreements ◽  
The United States ◽  
Preferential Trade Agreements ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Policy Coherence ◽  
Preferential Trade ◽  
Playing Field ◽  
Cooperative Approach

AbstractThe United States and the European Union include several environmental clauses in their respective preferential trade agreements (PTAs). Building on an exhaustive and fine-grained dataset of PTAs’ environmental clauses, this article makes two contributions. First, it shows that the United States and the European Union have initially favored different approaches to environmental protection in their PTAs. The United States’ concerns over regulatory sovereignty and level playing field have led to a legalistic and adversarial approach, while the European Union's concerns for policy coherence have led to a more procedural and cooperative approach. Second, this article provides evidence that European and American trade negotiators have gradually converged on a shared set of environmental norms. Although the United States and the European Union initially pursued different objectives, they learned from each other and drew similar lessons. As a result, recent American agreements have become more European-like, and European agreements have become more Americanized. This article concludes that U.S. and E.U. approaches, far from being incompatible, can usefully be combined and reinforce each other.

Subsidies Regulation Beyond the WTO

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Leonardo Borlini
Keyword(s):  
Trade Policy ◽  
Trade Agreements ◽  
Preferential Trade Agreements ◽  
Preferential Trade ◽  
Bilateral Agreements ◽  
Negative Function ◽  
Public Aid ◽  
The Eu

An increasingly important aspect of EU trade policy since the lifting of its self-imposed moratorium on preferential trade agreements (PTAs) has been the inclusion of WTO+ provisions on subsidies in bilateral agreements negotiated with a number of third countries. This article covers the main bilateral PTAs negotiated after the publication of the Commission’s Communication on ‘Global Europe’ in order to explore the implications of the different subsidy disciplines they set out. It also discusses the questions that arise when examining the legal discipline of public aid provided by such agreements, regarding not only the substantive appropriateness of standards and rules on compatibility, but also the procedural mechanisms designed to guarantee the implementation and the enforcement of such rules. It concludes that the most advanced among the EU PTAs are shaped as competition regulation and go beyond a mere negative function, ensuring that subsidies can contribute to fundamental public goals.

Preferential Trade Agreements as Stumbling Blocks for Multilateral Trade Liberalization: Evidence for the United States

2006 ◽  
Vol 96 (3) ◽  
pp. 896-914 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nuno Limão
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Trade Liberalization ◽  
Trade Agreements ◽  
The United States ◽  
Preferential Trade Agreements ◽  
Detailed Data ◽  
Preferential Trade ◽  
Multilateral Trade ◽  
Multilateral Trade Liberalization ◽  
Tariff Reductions

Most countries are members of preferential trade agreements (PTAs). The effect of these agreements has attracted much interest and raised the question of whether PTAs promote or slow multilateral trade liberalization, i.e., whether they are a “building block” or “stumbling block” to multilateral liberalization. Despite this long-standing concern with PTAs and the lack of theoretical consensus, there is no systematic evidence on whether they are actually a stumbling block to multilateral liberalization. We use detailed data on U.S. multilateral tariffs to provide the first systematic evidence that the direct effect of PTAs was to generate a stumbling block to its MTL. We also provide evidence of reciprocity in multilateral tariff reductions.

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