Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP): The Devil in Disguise or a Golden Opportunity to Build a Transatlantic Marketplace?
| Author | Christian Pitschas |
| Position | Attorney-at Law (Geneva), Lecturer, Freie Universität Berlin; Dr iur (Freie Universität Berlin); LLM (University of Georgia); LLB (Freie Universität Berlin) |
| Pages | 315-340 |
TransaTlanTic Trade and invesTmenT ParTnershiP
(TTiP): The devil in disguise or a golden oPPorTuniTy
To Build a TransaTlanTic markeTPlace?
Christian Pitschas*
Attorney-at-Law, Geneva, Switzerland
ABSTRACT
The European Union (EU) and the United States are currently negotiating a free-trade
agreement, the so-called Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP). These
negotiations have to be seen in perspective, since a number of other - bilateral and
plurilateral - trade deals are being pursued at the same time. All these negotiations point
to a worrisome aspect: the World Trade Organisation’s failure to come to a meaningful
agreement in the Doha-round negotiations, in terms of market access, new rules and
development. Like the Trans-Pacic Partnership (TPP), TTIP would stand out among
the crowd of trade agreements because of the sheer volume of trade and investment
ows across the Atlantic and the declared intention to boost regulatory cooperation and
compatibility which is expected to bring the bulk of TTIP’s economic benets. However,
the prospect of concluding such a transatlantic agreement raises many concerns; the
public in the European Union and the United States fears that TTIP could undermine
existing levels of protection in areas such as health and the environment and impinge
on either side’s “right to regulate”. Moreover, questions are being posed as to what
TTIP would mean for the multilateral trading system and how it would affect third
countries, especially developing countries. Against this backdrop, this article addresses
the following issues in relation to TTIP: the vision underlying the negotiations; the
European Commission’s negotiating mandate; the structure of the negotiations and
their state of play; the Union’s competence for concluding TTIP and whether it is shared
with EU Member States; and nally TTIP’s impact on the multilateral trading system
and developing countries.
Br. J. Am. Leg. Studies 5 (2016), DOI: 10.1515/bjals-2016-0011
© 2016 Christian Pitschas, published by De Gruyter Open.
This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 License.
CONTENTS
i. inTroducTion ...............................................................................................317
ii. Basic idea Behind TTiP ............................................................................320
iii. negoTiaTing mandaTe of The euroPean commission ...............................323
* Attorney-at Law (Geneva), Lecturer, Freie Universität Berlin; Dr iur (Freie Universität
Berlin); LLM (University of Georgia); LLB (Freie Universität Berlin). He can be reached at
christian@pitschas.ch.
5 Br. J. Am. Leg. Studies (2016)
iv. negoTiaTions’ sTrucTure and sTaTe of Play ........................................... 326
A. Market Access ..................................................................................... 326
1. Trade in Goods ..............................................................................326
2. Trade in Services ...........................................................................327
3. Public Procurement........................................................................ 329
B. Regulatory Cooperation and Compatibility ........................................ 330
1. Horizontal Chapters ....................................................................... 331
2. Sectoral Chapters ........................................................................... 332
C. Rules .................................................................................................... 333
v. exclusive comPeTence of The euroPean union for concluding TTiP? ..337
vi. imPacT of TTiP .........................................................................................338
vii. ouTlook ..................................................................................................339
316
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