Regional Trade Agreements (RTAs) have increased significantly in number over the past few years. The number of RTAs which include environmental provisions is also increasing. However, these provisions, and the experience related to their negotiation and implementation, have not been examined in...

Les accords commerciaux régionaux (ACR) sont de plus en plus souvent présentés comme une menace pour le libre-échange de biens et de services à l’échelle mondiale. Leur part dans les échanges mondiaux ne cesse de croître. Cette étude compare les dispositions normatives des accords...

Regional trade agreements (RTAs) are increasingly portrayed as a threat to the free global exchange of goods and services. They involve an ever-growing share of world trade. The proportion of world trade covered by such accords is expected to grow from 43% today to 55% in 2005, if all regional...

This report examines information on consumer protection enforcement authorities of OECD member and non-member countries, especially on the ability of these authorities to co-operate across borders. It is based on questionnaire responses from 31 countries, supplemented by additional research. It...

Im Verlauf des Transformationsprozesses war die bulgarische Wirtschaft nicht in der Lage, Direktinvestitionen aus dem Ausland in dem Volumen anzuziehen, wie andere Transformationsformationsländer. Zur weiteren Entwicklung des Landes sind aber vor allem Verbindugen zu Investoren aus dem...

International conventions designed to combat global environmental problems -- known as Multilateral Environmental Agreements or MEAs -- often use trade measures, among other instruments. But in fact the term trade measures covers a variety of provisions, ranging from simple reporting...

Developing countries are concerned that multilateral tariff reductions will harm their agricultural sectors because of preference erosion. The findings in this report suggest that although this may indeed be a problem for some countries in some sectors, factors other than preferential schemes...

This report aims to answer two major questions: (1) How beneficial are the trade preferences provided to developing countries; and (2) what are the implications of possible erosion of these benefits under multilateral trade liberalisation? The report focuses on trade preferences provided by the...