Armand de Mestral

NAFTA: The Unfulfilled Promise of the FTA

This paper argues that while the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) has been successful in fostering trade between the parties and in serving as a model for subsequent free trade agreements, it has not realised its potential. This results from the free trade format itself as well as the unwillingness of the parties to go beyond the free trade format and their refusal to deal with new trade and security issues within NAFTA.

Negotiating CETA with the European Union and Some Thoughts on the Impact of Mega-Regional Trade Agreements on Agreements Inter Partes and Agreements with Third Parties

The negotiation of the CETA between the EU and Canada took a surprisingly long time given the many common interests of the two parties. The final stages of the negotiation involved last minute changes, the decision to agree on provisional application and the threat of a veto from Belgium. This was in part due to public concerns concerning investor-state arbitration, to the political decision to treat CETA as a mixed agreement under EU law and due to the rather surprising understanding that even the decision to adopt CETA on a provisional basis was subject to a rule of unanimity. The second part of this paper considers the legal consequences of CETA and other mega-regional trade agreements on relations between parties inter se, relations with third party states and the complex implications of a decision to withdraw.