• 아태비즈니스연구
• /
• 제14권1호
• /
• pp.381-396
• /
• 2023

Purpose - The purpose of this study was to analyze environmental and labor issues and related norms, which are new trade issues that are expanding in bilateral and multilateral trade agreements, and examine the possible impact of these norms on domestic fisheries policies. Design/methodology/approach - In this study, literature research was used as the main research methods. The comparative analysis of international norms and multilateral trade agreements texts related to the environment, labor and trade were conducted. Findings - The new trade norms in the fisheries sector can be represented by labor and environment issues. Since domestic environmental and labor standards do not fully meet the standards of the multilateral trade agreements, it is necessary to ensure that domestic norms are supplemented and relevant policies are newly established through a review of international law on environment and labor. Research implications or Originality - This study confirmed that international norms related to labor and environment in the fisheries sector are mixed with soft norms and binding norms, and each norm is linked in a multi-layered and mutual way. Such international norms are being strengthened in connection with trade agreements and issues.

• 무역상무연구
• /
• 제12권
• /
• pp.615-641
• /
• 1999

Trade and the environment emerged as a major and complex issue for trade negotiators in the final stages of the Uruguay Round negotiations. The agreements and other international measures employing trade measures and trade sanctions for achieving global environmental objectives are Vienna Convention on the Protection of the Ozone Layer(1985), the Montreal Protocol on Substances that deplete the Ozone Layer(1987), The Framework Convention on Climate Change(1992), the Convention on Biological Diversity(1992), the Basel Convention on the Control of Transboundary Movement of Hazardous Waste and their Disposal(1992), the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Faunna and Flora(1975), the Rio Declaration, the Agenda 21, etc. The texts of the World Trade Organization(WTO) incorporated certain provisions which were designed to reflect some of the environmental concerns are Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Properity Rights(TRIPs), Trade-Related Investment Measures (TRIMs), the General Agreement on Trade in Services(GATS), and Technical Barriers to Trade(TBT) There is the possibility of conflict between multilateral environmental agreements and WTO agreements granting waivers against trade measures and sanctions. This remains a possibility, especially between countries which are Member of WTO and which are not Members of the relevant multilateral environment agreements, and countries which are Members of both the WTO and the relevant MEAs. Measures taken under the trade-related provisions of MEAs could potentially give rise to conflicts under obligations arising in WTO texts. If the parties in dispute are WTO members while they are not members of MEAs, the WTO provisions can be granted a certain priority in terms of international norms and vice versa. When the parties concerned are both WTO members and MEAs, it will be rational to grant the WTO provisions a priority. However, such measures should neither constitute a means of arbitrary or unjustifiable discrimination between countries where similar conditions prevail, nor create a disguised restriction on trade. Also any trade measures taken should be necessary to prevent developments in trade from endangering the effectiveness of an MEA and they should be proportional and least trade restrictive.

• East Asian Economic Review
• /
• 제16권2호
• /
• pp.117-137
• /
• 2012

The objective of this article is to examine the characteristic features of contemporary policy-led regionalism in Asia. It identifies the positive and negative features associated with the free trade agreements that have proliferated in Asia during the first decade of the $21^{st}$ century. There has been a marked transformation in Asia's regional architecture in a short span of a decade-and-a-half. The mode and conduct of multilateral trade has been significantly transformed during recent years and Asia could not possibly remain immune to this transformation. The importance of regionalism in multilateral trade has increased steadily. In addition, the trade-investment-services nexus has developed and grown increasingly important. As business firms now manufacture parts of their products across the border, bilateral trade agreements (BTAs), regional trade agreements (RTAs) and free trade agreements (FTAs) of the contemporary period need to take into account the new kind of trade barriers that have been created due to the changing mode of trade. The contemporary regional agreements need to be designed to facilitate the new modes of conducting business and trade. It was understood rather late in Asia that the 'WTO-Plus' FTAs are more functional and result-oriented than their predecessors.

• 무역학회지
• /
• 제46권4호
• /
• pp.39-60
• /
• 2021

Despite the fast growth and rising importance of digital trade, there still exists no multilateral agreement governing digital trade. Significant differences in policy directions regarding key digital trade issues among the U.S., EU and China are the main stumbling blocks for reaching agreement on the multilateral front. To overcome this deficiency in digital trade rules, there has been active movement among mainly countries in the Asia-Pacific region for rule-making on digital trade. Starting with the CPTPP chapter on E-Commerce in 2018, there has been a series of digital trade rules agreed in bilateral or plurilateral formats, such as the USMCA, USJDTA, DEPA, DEA and RCEP. Korea is currently only member of RCEP, which contains an e-commerce chapter with lower levels of commitment as compared to other digital trade agreements. This paper provides a broad analysis of the recently concluded digital trade agreements, comparing the different coverage of rules, levels of commitment, and rules templates. The analysis aims to provide implications for the desirable direction of rule-making on digital trade and Korea's digital trade strategy.

• 무역학회지
• /
• 제47권4호
• /
• pp.15-33
• /
• 2022

This study is to investigate multilateral environmental agreements,mainly UNFCCC on the primary export industry of Korea and to make a policy recommendation. Mostly literature reviews are focused on the traditional multilateral environmental agreements and the for the most part analysis are conducted prior to the Paris agreement. The result of survey indicates that many companies have not yet felt burden on their business due to UNFCCC(decarbonization) and have monitored the related policies. But the companies ask the government for strong incentives. The paper implies that enforcing strong government incentives, upgrading usage of the nuclear power, improving the related government legislation, setting up the special task force team with government and private sectors are needed.

• 무역상무연구
• /
• 제14권
• /
• pp.349-370
• /
• 2000

The environmental problems such as global climate change, global waming, ozone depletion, environmental pollution have been caused by the rapid economic growth, increasing in use of fossil fuels for industrialization and scientific technology development. Especially human activities are significantly altering the atomosphere's composition and its radiative properties. To Stabilize greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere at a level that would prevent dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system, the international community adopted the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change in 1992 and Kyoto protocol in 1997. Also to protect ozone layer the international community adopted the Vienna Convention for the Protection of the Ozone Layer in 1985, and the Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer in 1987. To achieve global environmental objectives, some multilateral environmental agreements includes trade regulation. For example, Montreal Protocol includes the provisions to regulate the world trade of the sudstances which might destroy ozone layer. However Kyoto Protocol has no provisions to regulate trade and is not in force yet. Although there is no trade regulation article in Kyoto Protocol, the international world trade will be influenced by limitation and reduction of CO2 and strengthening the CO2 emission standard for import good. For example Korean car industy agreed with EU to reduce CO2 emission from new passenger car and Korean Semiconductor industry agreed with WSC(World Semiconductor Council) to reduce PFCs in 1999.

• 무역상무연구
• /
• 제68권
• /
• pp.171-195
• /
• 2015

The large increase in RTAs since the late 1980's has challenged the foundations of the multilateral trading system, and thereby has become an axis in the GATT/WTOsystem.While RTAs can be seen to be contradictory to the overall aim of the WTO, they were allowed for in Article XXIV of GATT conditional to certain provision. The failure of compliance and subsequently enforcement of these provisions could be seen as a serious flaw of Article XXIV since the inception of GATT system. Many elements of GATT Article XXIV are not clear and thus lead to divergent interpretations of its disciplines. This considerable divergence in opinions arise from both ambiguities throughout the provisions under GATT Article XXIV. In this regard, both economic and legal work is required to keep up with constantly changing nature of the world trading system. Further, global efforts are required to resolve another teething issue of WTO's problematic institutional framework on GATT/WTO's oversight and surveillance of RTAs. and thereby strengthen the multilateral trading system. Needless to say, theGATT/WTOframework has been essential in paving the way for RTAs while ensuring a more multilateral and liberal trading system. Consequently, global efforts should be made to restructure the WTO for the renewed multilateral trade liberalization in the GATT/WTO.

• East Asian Economic Review
• /
• 제24권4호
• /
• pp.337-348
• /
• 2020

Although the WTO has fulfilled several key tasks it was set up to do - providing periodic reviews of members' trade policies, resolving disputes, supporting negotiations - with the notable exceptions of the Trade Facilitation and Information Technology agreements, WTO members have not been able to negotiate new rules on "bread and butter" trade policies. The importance of doing so was illustrated by the COVID-19 pandemic which saw widespread uncoordinated recourse to trade policy instruments. This paper highlights four reforms that would bolster the effectiveness of the WTO as a forum for trade cooperation: (1) improving collection and reporting of information on trade-related policies; (2) supporting analysis-informed deliberation to establish a common understanding of the need and scope for cooperation in specific policy areas; (3) putting in place a stronger multilateral governance framework for plurilateral cooperation between groups of WTO members; and (4) reestablishing an effective dispute settlement system.

• East Asian Economic Review
• /
• 제22권1호
• /
• pp.3-28
• /
• 2018

This article discusses the deadlock in the WTO on multilateral harmonization of nonpreferential rules of origin (RoO) and reviews some of the RoO included in recent preferential trade agreements. We argue that there is a trend towards adoption of similar approaches and that this suggests that cooperation to reduce the trade-impeding effects of differences in RoO across jurisdictions is more feasible than often is assumed by observers and policymakers. From a trade facilitation perspective such cooperation could be based on plurilateral initiatives under the umbrella of the WTO. These could include a focus on pursuit of greater convergence between preferential and nonpreferential RoO helping to achieve the long-standing goal of moving towards harmonization of rules of origin.

• East Asian Economic Review
• /
• 제22권2호
• /
• pp.177-215
• /
• 2018

Trump's withdrawal from the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) and his "America First" trade agenda ignite a second round of interest in mega-free trade agreements in the Asia-Pacific. Countries are evaluating alternative trade policy actions in a post-TPP era. Using national real GDP gains estimated by a modified GTAP model to construct "preference ordering" for 10 Association of Southeast Asian Nations members and their six regional dialogue partners, this paper comes up with several policy-oriented findings. First, when multilateral agreements are not possible, countries are better off with a regional trading agreement than without one. Second, the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership is likely to have higher beneficial impacts than the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership. Third, for dual-track countries, implementing both agreements is better than each separately. Fourth, impacts of open regionalism are likely to be higher than those of a closed and reciprocal one. Going forward, this paper argues that countries should adopt a "multi-track, multi-stage" approach to trade policy.