ISDS Case Map
bilateralism & multilateralism
how bilateral, multilateral, regional, unilateral and plurilateral approaches relate (e.g. FTAs vis-à-vis WTO)
When was the last time you heard Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh talk about the World Trade Organisation?
Prime Minister Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi said the enlarged East Asian free trade agreement (FTA) was not intended to replace the World Trade Organisation (WTO) as most of the negotiations done by Asean were WTO-compatible.
The anticipated collapse of the sixth WTO ministerial meeting will divert member countries away from striking bilateral or regional free-trade pacts, which would gradually drive Taiwan's trade and business into a corner, lawmakers and researchers said yesterday.
Regional and bilateral agreements will proliferate further and protectionist tendencies are likely to increase if the World Trade Organisation (WTO) talks in Hong Kong fail, business leaders and analysts say.
Trade pacts - new pillars in India's economic diplomacy With signs of failure looming over global trade talks in Hong Kong in December, India has drawn an ambitious agenda to forge bilateral, regional and multilateral trade pacts with a host of countries and trading blocs as a new pillar of its economic diplomacy and globalisation drive.
Thailand and Australia - two countries at the forefront of a regional proliferation of bilateral free trade agreements - will be worth watching at the World Trade Organization talks starting in Hong Kong on December 13.
During the last decade, Regional Trade Agreement (RTA) containing competition policy provisions have proliferated. These are part of a trend for 'deeper' RTAs which often include articles for liberalizing trade in services, investment, labour and other trade-related provisions.
As world leaders gathered Friday for their annual talks on building a free trade zone that circles the Pacific, they were also spending time in sideline huddles forging one-on-one agreements.
Criticised by business leaders and alarmed by the possible failure of next month's world trade talks in Hong Kong, Asia-Pacific governments are acknowledging for the first time the dangers of the tangled "spaghetti bowl" of bilateral trade deals they have spawned in the past few years.
European Union (EU) trade organisations have called for regional free trade agreements to complement World Trade Organisation negotiations for a global open market.
