Working Paper

Regulatory Provisions in Regional Trade Agreements: the "Singapore" Issues

Publication Date
19 Mar 2026
Author
Kenneth Heydon
Series Title
UNU-CRIS Working Papers
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Abstract

Provisions in RTAs dealing with investment, competition, trade facilitation and governmentprocurement commonly go beyond provisions in the WTO or, in the case of government procurement,adopt provisions substantially similar to those of the WTO Agreement, but include countries that arenot parties to that Agreement. Moreover, in "going beyond", RTAs often do so in a way that allows considerable flexibility of application allowing participating countries to scale their regionalambitions according to their particular circumstances.

The views expressed in this publication are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the United Nations University.