Whereas international trade agreements have traditionally focused on reducing and progressively removing tariffs that increase the costs of international trade transactions, as tariffs have come down after successive rounds of tariff negotiations as well as sectorial agreements to eliminate them all together, attention has progressively shifted towards regulatory obstacles in the form of non-tariff measures (NTMs). This contribution aims at showing why regulatory cooperation, the objective of which is to reduce obstacles to trade caused by regulatory divergence between different markets worldwide, is crucial for exporters and how it can be defined and applied in free trade agreements (FTAs). The different forms of regulatory cooperation within FTAs and their evolution in recent years with the emergence of ‘new generation’ FTAs is analysed from the perspective of two sectors: the automotive industry and information and communication technology goods.
Global Trade and Customs Journal