Regional trade agreement (RTA) rules cover policy areas vital for 21st century trade , but can be surprisingly hard to find and complex to navigate. By making RTA texts available in a machine-readable format, a new RTA Exchange tool helps stakeholders of trade agreements make more informed decisions. The tool can be used to identify common trends and approaches across agreements, and to map out RTA design and evolution. The feature will be especially useful for developing countries with limited resources for preparing trade negotiations. A sizable part of global trade and investment flows are governed by rules enshrined in free trade agreements and custom unions. These rules, however, can be surprisingly hard to find and complex to navigate. Databases on preferential trade agreements (PTAs) typically only have limited regional coverage or do not provide easy access to treaty full texts. This is despite the fact that PTAs are regulating an ever-larger share of trade and encompass novel disciplines such as e-commerce and investment. From investors and traders to negotiators and policymakers, the stakeholders of PTAs thus struggle to find and comprehend the rules that apply to them. A collaborative project between researchers from the University of Ottawa and the...
Written by Wolfgang Alschner