Trans-Pacific Partnership and Global Trade Governance

TPP (Trans-Pacific Partnership), currently under negotiation among 11 countries of the Asia Pacific region, would become a path-breaking free trade agreement (FTA) of the 21st century. This book is the first academic attempt to locate the TPP within the broad context of the changing global trade governance and global business environment. The book aims for an objective and accurate prediction of the final text of the TPP, based on publicly available sources of information, and elucidates the impacts of the TPP upon the economy and regulatory systems of its member countries.

Focusing on the backgrounds and prospects of TPP, the book explores the emerging global trade governance provided by the TPP, which would eventually be completed by the restructuring and reinvigoration of the WTO. The book also elucidates the causes and dynamics which had led the U.S. to take the initiative to tackle on them through the TPP. This book also synthesizes the analysis and makes a projection of the developments of the global trade governance in the 21st century after the TPP.

The book concludes by making a set of policy proposals for the reconstruction of the global trade governance by avoiding the worst pessimistic scenario, and hence, it is to be seriously considered by major stakeholders of global trade governance including governments, firms, international organizations and the general public.

Junji Nakagawa is a Professor of International Economic Law at the Institute of Social Science, the University of Tokyo. He obtained a Ph.D. in Law at the University of Tokyo in 1988. Before assuming the current position in 2000, he was an Associate Professor of Law at the Tokyo Institute of Technology (1990 to 1995) and an Associate Professor of International Economic Law at the Institute of Social Science, the University of Tokyo (1995 to 2000). He has also obtained a visiting professorial position in a number of foreign universities, including University of Denver (1998), University of Georgia (2000 to 2002), El Colegio de Mexico (1998 to 1999), City University of Hong Kong (2005), and Tufts University (2006 to 2007).

He is a member of the Executive Council of the Society of International Economic Law (2008 to present), and a Chairman of the Asian International Economic Law Network (2009 to present). He is a member of the editorial boards of major academic journals, including Japanese Yearbook of International Law, formerly Japanese Annual of International Law (1991 to present), Journal of World Trade (2003 to present), Law and Development Review (2007 to present), and Revista de Derecho Economico Internacional, (2010 – present).

His publication include Managing Development: Globalization, Economic Restructuring and Social Policy (Routledge, 2006), Anti-Dumping Laws and Practices of the New Users (Cameron May, 2007), Multilateralism and Regionalism in Global Economic Governance: Finance, Trade and Investment (Routledge, 2011), International Harmonization of Economic Regulation (Oxford University Press, 2011), Transparency in International Trade and Investment Dispute Settlement (Routledge, 2013), and WTO: Beyond Trade Liberalization (Iwanami Shoten, 2013 (in Japanese)).