This text offers a detailed and practical overview of the market of the European Communities (EC) and the main instruments of the EC's commercial policy and trade agreements. The main focus is on the practical aspects and application of those laws with regard to the EC's major trading partners. The book makes full reference to the rulings of the European Court of Justice (ECJ) and also to the legislation regulating market access conditions. As a result, it provides a basic picture of EC trade policy together with the necessary tools and knowledge for entering into or improving bilateral or multilateral trade relations with the EC. The book is divided into six chapters. Chapter One contains an overview of the determinants of EC trade policy and its constitutional framework. Chapter Two examines the EC's various preferential and non-preferential trade regimes for third countries. Chapter Three is devoted to customs laws, with special emphasis on preferential rules of origin. Chapter Four discusses specific trade laws such as the anti-subsidy law and the "commercial policy instrument". Chapter Five covers the EC's most important trade protection law, the anti-dumping law. Finally, Chapter Six contains an overview of judicial remedies available to private parties.

This book provides comprehensive, in depth analysis of the different sets of rules of origin adopted by major trading partners, namely EU, US, China and Japan and all trading regions - Asia, Africa and Latin America. It discusses the current status of non-preferential as well as preferential rules of origin in international trade, their evolution over last decades and tendencies for the future. With its multidisciplinary approach, the book's contents provide legal and economic comparative analysis of different sets of rules origin, reviewing their drafting differences and their implications and impact on industrial and investment environments. Drawing from the thirty years' experience of the Author, the book provides insights from trade negotiations along with practical tools for policy makers and practitioners, orientation for the private sector and analytical tools for researchers. A new methodology to draft product specific rules of origin based on an input-output table elaborated by the Author is a distinctive feature of this new edition as well as a new chapter dealing with administrative aspects of rules of origin.

ASEAN has undertaken the complex task of creating a single economic entity for Southeast Asia by 2015 in the form of the ASEAN Economic Community (AEC), but without regulators or supranational institutions, its implementation has been an inconsistent process. Through comparisons with the EU and NAFTA, this book illustrates the shortcomings of the current system, enabling readers to understand both the potential of regional economic development in ASEAN and its foundational and institutional deficiencies. The authors' analysis of trade in goods and services, investment, and dispute resolution in the AEC indicates that without strong regional institutions, strong dispute resolution or a set of norms, full and effective implementation of the AEC is unlikely to result. The book offers clear solutions for the ASEAN institutions to help the AEC reach its full potential. Written by two leading practitioners, this insightful book will interest policymakers, students and researchers.

Rules of Origin in ASEAN is the first in-depth exploration of the complex rules of origin in ASEAN's trade agreements. Written by two leading practitioners, it explains with clarity the existing ASEAN Rules of Origin (RoO) practices and their administration regimes in a comparative context and provide a recommendation for reform. The ASEAN RoOs can be simplified by imparting transparency and predictability to the legal drafting, focusing on a calculation method based on value of materials and lowering the regional value content required to qualify as ASEAN origin. The administration of ASEAN RoOs can be improved by expanding the use of self-certification, moving away from document-based verification to more modern post-entry audit and trade facilitation approaches. This is a timely and important topic which will be insightful to practitioners, policymakers and businesses in understanding how commerce and trade are conducted in Southeast Asia.

This book discusses the different aspects of the rules of origin with a multidisciplinary perspective. It offers the first overview on the status of the negotiations of non-preferential rules of origin under the WTO agreement on rules of origin after more than ten years of negotiations and the possible implications for other WTO agreements. This book deals extensively with preferential rules of origin both under unilateral trade instruments like GSP, EBA, and AGOA and in free trade areas. Inama analyzes the experience of the United States and the EU in developing the NAFTA and Pan-European rules of origin. He also compares and discusses the parallel experiences of the major southern regional trade agreements such as Mercosur and ASEAN and the ASEAN China free trade area, as well as Comesa and SADC in their negotiations of the European partnership agreements (EPAs) with the EU. It discusses the evolution of the different sets of rules of origin, the technical options for drafting rules of origin, a methodology for drafting product specific rules origin, and the possible implications.