Alan Yanovich Quoted by Latin Lawyer on Latin America’s Trans-Pacific Partnership
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Latin Lawyer, for its article “Trans-Pacific Partisanship,” quoted Akin Gump international trade senior counsel Alan Yanovich on Latin America’s TPP (Trans-Pacific Partnership) with the Asia-Pacific region.
When negotiations between the 12 TPP countries concluded in August 2013, the inter-sessional meetings between working groups began that are still in progress today, the article notes. Yanovich said, “The Australian Trade Minister has described the negotiations as being ‘80 percent plus there’, but of course, that 20 percent that is left at the end is always the most difficult as it involves the issues where participating countries have the strongest sensibilities,”
The article goes on to note Yanovich’s thoughts on the effects of complex and overlapping regulations within the TPP: “On the one hand, they [free trade agreements] open huge opportunities for business as they can get the access they want and influence the rules to make it better for them, but at the same time there is the risk that in negotiating more and more rules, you are increasing the chance of incoherence.”
Furthermore, Yanovich also expressed his views on the possible positive opportunities TPP has to gain by negotiating with the World Trade Organization (WTO): “There is a sense that whatever is agreed on SOEs (state-owned enterprises) and other more modern issues can serve as a foundation for negotiations with other countries or more broadly at the WTO,” he says, adding that Brazil’s absence from any of the major trading blocs currently being negotiated could also spur it to become “one of the big supporters of multilateral initiatives at the WTO.”