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Published as Chapter 15 in The Trans-Pacific Partnership : A Quest for a Twenty-First Century Trade Agreement, C.L. Lim, Deborah K. Elms & Patrick Low, eds.
This chapter examines the prospects for the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) to expand into a Free Trade Area of the Asia-Pacific (FTAAP). It does so by comparing the TPP to other potential models for Asian economic integration, and by identifying what factors might enhance or diminish the possibility of the TPP serving as the FTAAP model.
First, the chapter briefly traces the history of the TPP and its linkage to a potential FTAAP. Second, it examines other potential models for regional economic integration and discusses the pros and cons of each option for the major economies in the region. Third, it discusses reasons why the TPP might or might not be the preferred model, identifying important factors playing into this calculus.
The concept of an FTAAP has been bandied about for the past several years. C. Fred Bergsten has been a particularly strong advocate of this idea, espousing the pursuit of the Bogor goals of free trade and investment regimes throughout the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC). APEC initiated a study of the FTAAP concept in 2006, and in 2009 pledged to explore pathways to create an FTAAP. Bergsten’s early writings 3 on the subject assumed the only way an FTAAP could be accomplished would be to take the existing regional FTAs and agreements and combine them into an FTAAP. More recently, however, Bergsten has seized upon the TPP as the basis for an ultimate FTAAP.
Rights
Publication Date
2012
Publisher
Cambridge University Press
City
New York
ISBN
9781107028661
First Page
223
Last Page
241
Disciplines
International Trade Law | Law
Required Text
This material has been published in The Trans-Pacific Partnership : A Quest for a Twenty-First Century Trade Agreement edited by C.L. Lim, Deborah K. Elms & Patrick Low. This version is free to view and download for personal use only. Not for re-distribution, re-sale or use in derivative works. © World Trade Organization 2012.
Recommended Citation
Meredith Kolsky Lewis, Achieving a Free Trade Area of the Asia-Pacific: Does the TPP Present the Most Attractive Path? in The Trans-Pacific Partnership : A Quest for a Twenty-First Century Trade Agreement 223 (C.L. Lim, Deborah K. Elms & Patrick Low, eds., Cambridge University Press 2012)