International Competition Law: A New Dimension for the WTO?

Should an international competition agreement be incorporated into the World Trade Organization? Taylor examines this question, arguing that such an agreement would be beneficial. Existing initiatives towards the regulation of cross-border, anti-competitive conduct have clear limitations that could be overcome by an agreement, and the WTO would provide the optimal institutional vehicle for it. At a practical level, Taylor points out, an international competition agreement could address under-regulation and over-regulation in the trade-competition regulatory matrix, realizing substantive benefits to international trade and competition. This book identifies the appropriate content and structure for a plurilateral competition agreement and proposes a draft negotiating text with accompanying commentary, and as such will be an invaluable tool for policy-makers, WTO negotiators, competition and trade lawyers, and international jurists.

• Makes extensive use of diagrams to: explain key aspects of the underlying economic theory; summarize important features of legal instruments and procedures; and identify the key features and appropriate ranking of potential policy solutions
• Each chapter establishes a proposition, presenting the analysis in a step-by-step way; this allows the reader to follow the key issues and arguments easily
• A draft negotiating text with commentary is included as an Appendix, allowing readers to apply and gain further insight into the concepts identified in the text using a practical, ‘real-life’ example