Reassessing APEC’s Role as a Trans-Regional Economic Architecture: Legal and Policy Dimensions

41 Pages Posted: 8 Jul 2012 Last revised: 7 Jan 2014

See all articles by Pasha L. Hsieh

Pasha L. Hsieh

Singapore Management University - Yong Pung How School of Law

Date Written: Jan 24, 2013

Abstract

This article examines the two-decade evolution of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) and the future prospects for Asian regionalism. It argues that while APEC retains advantages over competing regional structures, it should undergo reforms to accelerate the Bogor Goals and ensure its complementarity with the World Trade Organization (WTO). The article first analyzes the impact of stake-holding countries’ trade policies on APEC’s structure and development. By assessing APEC’s soft-law mechanism, it explores APEC’s WTO-plus contributions that reinvigorated the International Technology Agreement negotiations and improved supply chain facilitation. APEC’s goal of creating a Free Trade Area of the Asia-Pacific (FTAAP) can overcome structural limitations and serve as an effective “Plan B” for the Doha Round impasse. Nonetheless, caution should be given to legal challenges to the pathways to an FTAAP such as the Trans-Pacific Partnership. Finally, the article calls for reforms that will enhance APEC’s institution-building and monitoring system. Such reforms will strengthen APEC’s role under the multilateral trading system and reenergize the public-private partnership for trans-Pacific integration.

Keywords: APEC, FTAAP, TPP, RCEP, FTA, China, United States, Doha, regionalism

JEL Classification: F02, F10, F20, F30, F40

Suggested Citation

Hsieh, Pasha L., Reassessing APEC’s Role as a Trans-Regional Economic Architecture: Legal and Policy Dimensions (Jan 24, 2013). Journal of International Economic Law, vol.16: No.1, pp119-158, (24 Jan 2013), Singapore Management University School of Law Research Paper No. 4/2013, Society of International Economic Law (SIEL), 3rd Biennial Global Conference, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2101759 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2101759

Pasha L. Hsieh (Contact Author)

Singapore Management University - Yong Pung How School of Law ( email )

55 Armenian Street
Singapore, 179943
Singapore
68280345 (Phone)

HOME PAGE: http://www.law.smu.edu.sg/faculty/law/pashahsieh.asp

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