“New Generation” EU Free Trade Agreements: A Combination of Traditional and Innovative Mechanisms

Abstract

The chapter provides an overview of the “new generation” free trade agreements of the European Union (EU), which use traditional and innovative methods of regulating foreign economic activities. The author aims to analyze the provisions of EU free trade agreements, which contain new approaches to how legal regulations affect trade relations among its key partners in the following aspects: electronic commerce, investment disputes resolution, and the correlation between trade, labor, and environmental protection. In order to identify whether such innovations affect the EU trade policy and the global trading system, they are examined in conjunction with free trade agreements in force between the Union and Canada, Singapore, and South Korea. The author uses a method of system-structural analysis, a method of synthesis of social and legal phenomena, a comparative legal method, and a formal and logical method, founded upon general scientific and special processes, including the cognition of legal and economic phenomena, and processes in the field of international economic and commercial law. As a result of the study, the author comes to the conclusion that the “new generation” trade agreements of the European Union are a unique tool; they allow the EU to offer innovative regulatory methods based on existing multilateral standards, but they require faster and deeper economic integration. Examples of such measures include the EU’s proposal to recognize of electronic contracts, the complete abolition of customs duties in electronic commerce, a new system of investment courts, and active participation of civil society representatives in the implementation of trade agreements. It seems that the EU’s “new generation” free trade agreements deserve special attention as a foundation for fixing the rules of trade law, which can be done not only at the bilateral but also at the multilateral level.