The Trans-Pacific Partnership
A Quest for a Twenty-first Century Trade Agreement

An examination of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) - a trade agreement that aspires to set the benchmarks for future deals.

C. L. Lim (Edited by), Deborah Kay Elms (Edited by), Patrick Low (Edited by)

9781107028661, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 20 September 2012

356 pages, 2 b/w illus. 15 tables
22.9 x 15.2 x 2.4 cm, 0.69 kg

The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) talks attempt to link together at least nine countries in three continents to create a 'high-quality, twenty-first century agreement'. Such an agreement is intended to open markets to competition between the partners more than ever before in sectors ranging from goods and services to investment, and includes rigorous rules in the fields of intellectual property, labour protection and environmental conservation. The TPP also aims to improve regulatory coherence, enhance production supply chains and help boost small and medium-sized enterprises. It could transform relations with regions such as Latin America, paving the way to an eventual Free Trade Area of the Asia Pacific, or see innovations translated into the global trade regulatory system operating under the WTO. However, given the tensions between strategic and economic concerns, the final deal could still collapse into something closer to a standard, 'twentieth-century' trade agreement.

Part I. Introduction: 1. What is 'high quality, twenty-first century' anyway?
Part II. The Past: Origins of the Agreement: 2. An overview and snapshot of the TPP negotiations
3. US PTAs: what's been done and what it means for the TPP negotiations
4. From the P4 to the TPP: transplantation or transformation?
5. Incorporating development among diverse members
Part III. The Present: Twenty-First Century Elements and Obstacles: 6. Negotiations over market access in goods
7. Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) negotiations: rules of origin
8. Trade in services
9. Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement towards Innovations in Investment Rule-Making
10. The intellectual property chapter in the Trans-Pacific Partnership
11. Regulatory coherence in the Trans-Pacific Partnership talks
12. Environmental issues in the Trans-Pacific Partnership
13. Labour standards and the TPP
14. What is to be done with export restrictions?
Part IV. The Future: High-Quality Meets Regional and Global Realities: 15. Achieving a Free Trade Agreement of the Asia-Pacific: does the TPP present the most attractive path?: 16. APEC and TPP: are they mutually reinforcing?
17. Coping with multiple uncertainties: Latin America in the TPP negotiations
18. The TPP: multilateralizing regionalism or the securization of trade policy?
19. The TPP in a multilateral world
Part V. The TPP Negotiations: The Quest for Quality: 20. Conclusions.

Subject Areas: International economic & trade law [LBBM], Law [L], International economics [KCL]