Megaregulation Contested Global Economic Ordering After TPP

The Japan-led Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPPA) of 2018 is the most far-reaching 'megaregional' economic agreement in force, with several major countries beyond its eleven negotiating countries also interested. Still bearing the stamp of the original US involvement before the Trump-era reversal, TPP is the first instance of 'megaregulation': a demanding combination of inter-state economic ordering and national regulatory governance on a highly ambitious substantive and trans-regional scale. Its text and ambition have influenced other negotiations ranging from the Japan-EU Agreement (JEEPA) and the US-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) to the projected Pan-Asian Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP). This book provides an extensive analysis of TPP as a megaregulatory project for channelling and managing new pressures of globalization, and of core critical arguments made against economic megaregulation from standpoints of development, inequality, labour rights, environmental interests, corporate capture, and elite governance. Specialized chapters cover supply chains, digital economy, trade facilitation, intellectual property, currency levels, competition and state-owned enterprises, government procurement, investment, prescriptions for national regulation, and the TPP institutions. Country studies include detailed analyses of TPP-related politics and approaches in Japan, Mexico, Brazil, China, India, Indonesia, and Thailand. Contributors include leading practitioners and scholars in law, economics, and political science. At a time when the WTO and other global-scale institutions are struggling with economic nationalism and geopolitics, and bilateral and regional agreements are pressed by public disagreement and incompatibility with digital and capital and value chain flows, the megaregional ambition of TPP is increasingly important as a precedent requiring the close scrutiny this book presents.

1 - Introduction: The Essence, Significance, and Problems of the Trans-Pacific Partnership
2 - The Trans-Pacific Partnership as Megaregulation
3 - The Uncertain Geo-Strategic Outlook for the US in Asia: The Pivot, the Re-Balance, TPP, and Now What?
4 - TPP and China: A Tale of Two Economic Orderings?
5 - The Politics of Expertise in Transnational Economic Governance: Breaking the Cycle
6 - Power and Inequality in Megaregulation: The TPP Model
7 - The Lessons of TPP and the Future of Labor Chapters in Trade Agreements
8 - TPP and Environmental Regulation
9 - Customs Administration and Trade Facilitation in TPP: The Missing Development Agenda
10 - In a World of Value Chains: What Space for Regulatory Coherence and Cooperation in Trade Agreements?
11 - The Regulation of Firms in Globally Intertwined Markets: The Case of Payment Systems
12 - TPP's Business Asymmetries: Megaregulation and the Conditions of Competition Between MNCs and SMEs
13 - Sales, Sourcing, or Regulation? Evidence from TPP on What Drives Corporate Support for Trade
14 - Digital Megaregulation Uncontested? TPP's Model for the Global Digital Economy
15 - Harmonization: Top Down, Bottom Up-and Now Sideways? The Impact of the IP Provisions of Megaregional Agreements on Third Party States
16 - Thailand and Public Health: Looking Beyond the Intellectual Property Chapter of TPP
17 - Remote Control: TPP's Administrative Law Requirements as Megaregulation
18 - Choices and Consequences: Internationalizing Competition Policy After TPP
19 - How Ready Is Indonesia to Open Government Procurement `a la TPP?
20 - Japan: Leveraging National Regulatory Reform and the Economic Modeling of Trade Agreements
21 - Regulating Regulation: Impact Assessment and Trade
22 - Trade and Exchange Rates: The Joint Declaration of the Macroeconomic Policy Authorities of TPP Countries
23 - The Institutions of TPP11: Back to the Future?
24 - State-to-State Dispute Settlement in Megaregionals
25 - Finding a Workable Balance Between Investor Protection and the Public Interest in the Trans-Pacific Partnership
26 - Japan: Interest Group Politics, Foreign Policy Linkages, and TPP
27 - Structuring Participation: Public Comments and the Dynamics of US Trade Negotiations
28 - After TPP Is Before TPP: Mexican Politics for Economic Globalization and the Lost Chance for Reflection
29 - Regional and Preferential Agreements: The 'Pacific' and 'Atlantic' Styles in Latin America
30 - Brazil in the Shadow of Megaregional Trade and Investment Standards: Beyond the Grand Debate, Pragmatic Responses
31 - TPP and India: Inspirations for Sequenced Reforms

Benedict Kingsbury is Vice Dean and Murry and Ida Becker Professor of Law at New York University School of Law. He also serves as Director of the Institute for International Law and Justice and Faculty Director of the Guarini Institute for Global Legal Studies. His major current projects focus on large scale global ordering such as TPP and the Belt & Road Initiative; physical, digital, and informational infrastructure; and global data/tech law. He is one of the editors (with Andrew Hurrell of Oxford University, and Richard B. Stewart) of the Law and Global Governance series. His research projects on global governance issues have been supported by the National Science Foundation, Carnegie Corporation of New York, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and the Rockefeller Foundation. David M. Malone is UN Under-Secretary General and Rector of the United Nations University. Malone previously served as President of Canada's International Development Research Centre; Canada's Representative to the UN Economic and Social Council and as Ambassador and Deputy Permanent Representative of Canada to the United Nations; as Director General of the Policy, International Organizations and Global Issues Bureaus within Canada's Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade; as President of the International Peace Academy (now International Peace Institute); as DFAIT Assistant Deputy Minister for Global Issues; and as Canada's High Commissioner to India, and non-resident Ambassador to Bhutan and Nepal (2006-2008). Paul Mertenskötter is a Fellow at the Institute for International Law and Justice at NYU Law and a PhD candidate at Humboldt University of Berlin. He was a law clerk at the International Court of Justice and holds a JD from NYU Law and a BA from the University of York. Richard B. Stewart (1940-2023) was University Professor and John Edward Sexton Professor of Law at New York University School of Law. Prior to joining the NYU School of Law faculty, he served as a Byrne Professor of Administrative Law at Harvard Law School and a member of the faculty of the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard; Assistant Attorney General in charge of the Environment and Natural Resource Division of the U.S. Department of Justice; and Chairman of the Environmental Defense Fund. Thomas Streinz is Adjunct Professor of Law at NYU Law and a Fellow at the Institute for International Law and Justice. Prior to moving to New York, he studied law at the University of Bayreuth and Ludwig Maximilians University of Munich. He holds the EUI's Diploma in European law and an LLM from NYU Law. Atsushi Sunami is currently Professor and Vice President at the National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies, Japan. He also serves as Special Advisor to Cabinet Office responsible for Science and Technology and Innovation. He is also a member of the Advisory Board for the Promotion of Science and Technology Diplomacy in Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan, the Council for Science and Technology in Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology and the Expert Panel on Basic Policy in Council for Science, Technology and Innovation of Cabinet office.