Multimedia

External event

Debate

Ensuring sustainability through trade agreements

This event, organised under the RTA Exchange dialogue series, aimed at systematically exploring possibilities for convergence and coherence-building between regional trade agreements (RTAs) and the multilateral trade system. The RTA Exchange initiative is jointly implemented by ICTSD and the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB).

The dialogue opened with an overview of how sustainability concerns, including environmental and social concerns, have been addressed in modern RTAs, and reviewed the treatment of sustainability provisions under different approaches or families of agreements. The afternoon sessions considered the challenges and benefits resulting from the implementation of sustainability provisions in RTAs from a variety of sectoral perspectives, and explored prospects at the multilateral level to advance a constructive discussion on sustainability drawing from the experience of RTAs and suggesting possible ways forward.

ECDPM’s Karim Karaki was a discussant in the session on ‘Sustainability provisions in RTAs’.