Rules of Origin as International Trade Hindrances

This paper talks about the usage of Rules of Origin (RoO) as protectionist apparatuses in different regional trade areas, as the North American Free Trade Area, the African Growth and Opportunity Act and the South African Development Community, and the usage of RoO as trade-diverting tools. In addition, the paper talks about the spaghetti-bowl phenomenon, with an emphasis on the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation region, and clarifies how to achieve a proper harmonization of both non-preferential and preferential RoO as a solution to overcome the previously mentioned odds facing international trade. Moreover, the paper suggests the adoption of more solutions as well at the end of each part. By harmonizing both preferential and non-preferential RoO in the way explained in the paper, all WTO member states would be stopped from using RoO as concealed commercial policy and protectionist tools, and would be stopped from designing stringent, trade-diverting RoO. Furthermore, the variation in RoO along with their worldwide propagation would be eliminated; exporters and producers would not have to worry anymore about complying with different RoO imposed by different countries and regional trade agreements all over the world, which would consequently lead to the abatement of the high administrative costs traders face