Book Review: Abhijit Das and Shailja Singh (Eds.), Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement: A Framework for Future Trade Rules?
| Published date | 01 May 2019 |
| DOI | 10.1177/0015732519831808 |
| Date | 01 May 2019 |
| Author | Debashis Chakraborty |
| Subject Matter | Book Review |
Book Review
Abhijit Das and Shailja Singh (Eds.), Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement:
A Framework for Future Trade Rules? New Delhi: SAGE Publications,
2018, 340 pp., `1,050. ISBN 978-93-528-0011-7.
The World Trade Organization (WTO) framework, after inception in 1995, was
expected to deepen market access across member countries and facilitate develop-
ment. However, slow progress of the Doha round of negotiations, partly owing to
the consensus requirement, has eventually lowered the attraction of the multilat-
eral trade reform process to a large extent. On the other hand, the possibility of
realizing tariff and other non-tariff barriers (NTBs) reforms through smoother
negotiations has enhanced the acceptance and hence demand for regional trade
agreements (RTAs) over the last decade. Both the developed and developing
countries (including India) have actively participated in the deepening regionali-
zation drive.
In recent times, the simple tariff and NTBs reforms are slowly giving way to
far deeper integrations encompassing trade facilitation measures, competition
policy, investment agreement, government procurement policies, TRIPS-Plus
measures, mutual recognition agreements (MRAs) on technical standards, labour
and environment provisions, and so on. Consequently, the negotiation process is
becoming complicated, and compliance by the developing countries might
become a major bone of contention. In particular, the mega-regional agreements,
namely Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) and regional comprehensive economic
partnership (RCEP) involving both developed and developing countries, are
exposed to such challenges. On the one hand, while the comprehensive agree-
ments encompassing these provisions and covering a wide geographical area
would be instrumental in strengthening the global value chains (GVCs) and inter-
national production networks (IPNs), protecting the domestic stakeholders in a
later stage in the light of regional commitments may in future emerge as an area
of concern. The RCEP negotiations, which involve India as a constituent member,
is still in progress with an undercurrent of such concerns, and the original deadline
has been missed. The details of the RCEP provisions are still not in the public
domain. The TPP was signed in 2016, but the USA decided to pull out in 2017 on
the ground of protecting domestic interests, which reduced the attractiveness of
the trade bloc. The TPP provisions are presently accessible and compared with
other free trade agreements (FTAs).
Foreign Trade Review
54(2) 126–128, 2019
©2019 Indian Institute of
Foreign Trade
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DOI: 10.1177/0015732519831808
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