Suchergebnisse

1. Introduction -- 2. Endangered Species, Fragile Marine Ecosystems, and the Philippines -- 3. The International Frameworks for the Conservation of Biodiversity and of the Marine Environment -- 4. The Protection and Preservation of Endangered Species and Fragile Ecosystems and the Jurisdiction of the Arbitral Tribunal -- 5. Endangered Species, Fragile Ecosystems, and the Obligation to Protect and Preserve the Marine Environment -- 6. Summary and Conclusions

AbstractIn the wake of the financial crisis, negotiating free trade agreements (FTAs) with Southeast Asia has become a priority for the European Union (EU). Paradoxically, all the indications are that the EU will demand that Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines and Thailand liberalize financial services trade with the EU. This article asks whether the EU's policy undermines coherence between EU trade and development policies. It argues that the EU and Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) agree that financial services are crucial for development, but that they differ on the approach to liberalization: the EU advocates broad‐ranging liberalization, whereas ASEAN countries favour a cautious approach, conditioned by their experience of the Asian financial crisis. In view of this divergence, the EU will have to rethink its approach to financial services trade liberalization in negotiations with ASEAN countries.

In future Free Trade Agreement (FTA) negotiations between the EU and individual Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) members, trade in services will feature prominently. Such negotiations will be constrained by the network of ASEAN's bilateral Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs) with Japan, because the EPAs' approach differs from the EU approach at the World Trade Organization's Doha Round in two ways. First, Japan adopted the approach to services trade liberalization favoured by ASEAN. Second, Japan accepted ASEAN's regulations in the services sectors that they liberalized and allowed the movement of certain categories of natural persons to Japan. In return, ASEAN countries opened a large number of services sectors to Japanese investment.

The relative speed and ease with which the EU and ASEAN reached an agreement in 2007 to initiate negotiations for a free trade agreement may create the impression that this constituted a success for the EU's Asia strategy. In reality, the launching of negotiations represented a series of failures for the EU. By 2007, neither of the two conditions the EU had a few years before set for such negotiations (a convergence between EU and ASEAN regulations and the successful conclusion of WTO negotiations) had been fulfilled. Moreover, the EU was compelled to accept the ASEAN format for negotiations implying the participation of Myanmar, at a time when repression in Myanmar had intensified and the EU had renewed its sanctions against the latter.