Countries in the Asia-Pacific have become increasingly unreceptive to multilateral trade forums like the World Trade Organization (WTO) and the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) because of fears that such organizations cannot work effectively at mediating such a contentious issue. Instead, countries in the Asia-Pacific have begun to turn towards bilateral free trade agreements (FTAs). With this background in mind, our book explores three questions: Why does bilateralism develop? How will bilateralism evolve? And how will bilateralism affect other types of trade arrangements?
The results of this project were published in Bilateral Trade Agreements in the Asia-Pacific (2006), available for purchase at Amazon.com and BarnesandNoble.com.