Open Regionalism (legal analysis)

Abstract

The principle of open regionalism, a new paradigm of regional economic cooperation, has become a focal point of several economic organizations, particularly in the Asia Pacific region and Latin America. Nevertheless, Asia-Pacific and Latin American versions of open regionalism substantially diverge and no compromise definition of this principle has yet been worked out. The Asia-Pacific approach (mostly advocated by academic community, though not equivocally, rather than governments) defines open regionalism as a guiding rule to the extension of trade and investment liberalization measures, undertaking by the members of the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum, to all non-members on unilateral and unconditional basis. On the contrary, the Latin American approach (accepted by ECLAC, Andean Community) considers open regionalism a strategy of creating regional blocs whose liberalization measures can be extended to non-members only on reciprocal basis. Apparently, the Latin American interpretation of open regionalism remains non-distinguishable from the concept of closed regions shaped in forms of free trade agreements or customs unions in compliance with Article XXIV of GATT and Article V of GATS. The Asia-Pacific stance on open regionalism propagates outwardoriented regional liberalization programs that facilitate multilateral (WTOdriven) trade liberalization agenda. Thus the Asia-Pacific approach precisely specifies core and unique peculiarities of the conception of open regionalism. Yet, despite consistent and logical explication of open regionalism given by Asia-Pacific scholars, this concept has appeared to be hardly implemental in practice.