Hsieh: APEC as a Trans-Regional Economic Governance Architecture: A Critical Assessment With Reform Proposals

Pasha L. Hsieh (Singapore Management Univ. - Law) has posted APEC as a Trans-Regional Economic Governance Architecture: A Critical Assessment With Reform Proposals. Here's the abstract:

The Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) is the world’s largest trans-regional governance framework, consisting of 21 economies in the Pacific Rim. APEC represents more than 53% of global gross domestic product (GDP) and 44% of world trade. Its growth amounts to 4.3%, which exceeded the world growth of 3.5% in 2012. Despite its economic significance, APEC is yet to be a free trade zone as defined by World Trade Organization (WTO) law. Lacking an establishment treaty that confers legal personality, APEC has functioned as a de facto institution that promotes economic integration through the non-binding or soft-law approach.

This article reassesses APEC’s 23-year efforts and argues that while the APEC approach has contributed to regional economies, its structure and operation should undergo reforms to create a Free Trade Area of the Asia-Pacific (FTAAP) and accelerate the Bogor Goals. These reforms are also essential to ensure APEC’s compliance with the WTO and to render the FTAAP an effective “Plan B” for the Doha impasse and the “spaghetti bowl” problem, which is aggravated by the proliferation of regional free trade agreements (FTA). Section II examines APEC’s evolution as a soft institution and how trade agendas of key APEC states affected APEC’s operations. It identifies APEC’s key achievements including the Information Technology Agreement, environmental goods liberalization and other frontier WTO-plus issues. Section III explores a comparative analysis of potential pathways to the FTAAP and illustrates the challenges of ongoing Trans-Pacific Partnership negotiations faced by APEC member economies. Section IV provides institutional reform proposals for APEC. In particular, it calls for passing the APEC Charter and reforming the APEC Secretariat to reinvigorate the institution’s role as the pivotal driving force for Asia-Pacific integration.