The slow pace of the Doha Round has boosted the proliferation of regional and bilateral trade agreements. Paradoxically, the more powerful actors, the US and the European Union, who at the same time have benefited the most from the multilateral system, have also been engaged in bilateral and regional negotiations in order to sign WTO-plus agreements with developing countries. Combining a clear theoretical exposition with systematic cross-regional analysis, 'Asymmetric Trade Negotiations' offers a coherent picture of strategic, design and political economy aspects of North-South trade negotiation processes, from African, Asian and Latin American perspectives. Skilled area specialists gather to provide negotiators and policy makers in the South with recommendations, best practices, and benchmarks and contribute to the understanding of these recent processes.
Biography
Philippe De Lombaerde is Associate Director at United Nations University Institute on Comparative Regional Integration Studies (UNU-CRIS) (Bruges, Belgium). Sanoussi Bilal is the Head of the Economic and Trade Cooperation Programme at the European Centre for Development Policy Management (ECDPM) (Maastricht, The Netherlands). Diana Tussie directs the Department of International Relations at the Argentine campus of the Facultad Latinoamericana de Ciencias Sociales (FLACSO), and is founding director of the Latin American Trade Network.
'Power dynamics and competing interests in international trade negotiations are a vexing problem at the heart of global and regional trade agendas. The multi-regional and comparative cases in the volume allow a nuanced understanding of the intricacies of negotiations among asymmetrical trade partners. It is an important contribution to the debate on the architecture of global economic institutions, as well as the future of the global trade agenda.' José Raúl Perales, The George Washington University, USA 'Given that almost all of New Zealand’s trade negotiations are with larger partners (only Brunei is smaller), this book on asymmetry and how to cope with it is timely... it offers credible examples from the 21st century... A timely reminder of enduring global political-economic imbalances.' New Zealand International Review 'The international political economy framework employed in this book is paired with a trade policy practitioner’s level of detailed knowledge of the world trading regime, making for a book that is both theoretically interesting and empirically satisfying. ... This book is a good contribution to international political economy analyses of the world trade regime.' Political Studies Review
