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TTIP Leaks: A Welcome Opportunity for More Homework

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 January 2017

Christian Häberli*
Affiliation:
World Trade Institute, Bern University (Switzerland)

Extract

So the damage is done: both emperors go naked, and this at a particularly sensitive stage of the negotiations. Worse, the hegemons sit on an applecart already so full that only a “TTIP light” seems to save it from toppling, albeit at a price of losing its most precious apple: regulatory coherence, no wand forever!

But wait! We may already have given up hope for transatlantic agreements on financial cooperation and data protection. Hormone beef and biotech seeds, if not feed, also look rather far away from good and risk–free regulatory solutions. And carmakers in Asia and South America may have chuckled with relief when the efforts of US and EU manufacturers of automobiles failed to define a fully harmonised, standardised and mutually recognised “TTIP Car” – after which they would have had little if any leeway for their own motors, emission limits, windscreens and safety standards.

This is where the leaks may have opened a welcome window of opportunity for third countries, blinded as they apparently all are by the prospects of trade liberalisation racing ahead with megaregional steps too big for them to buy in with any hope for negotiating power.

Type
Symposium on TTIP Leaks
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2016

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References

1 As for investor–state dispute settlement (ISDS), the other big apple on that cart, it may already have fallen off. As matters stand, especially when looking at the difficulties WTO now has to reappoint Appellate Body members and to fill vacancies, this is perhaps not a big drama… but that is another story unrelated to this paper.

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