Services Trade Liberalisation in RCEP

The liberalisation of services has been central to the RCEP process, reflecting the interests of key stakeholders involved in the negotiations. The outcome of RCEP can be viewed as a political-economic balance that harmonises the diverse interests of its member countries. However, the agreement is sometimes criticised for being somewhat of a ‘talking shop’, offering few tangible steps beyond what has already been established in existing agreements. Despite this criticism, the RCEP process serves as a case study on the complexities of deep integration in the global economy (European Parliament 2021). It illustrates how countries may adopt flexible strategies to tackle the challenges, providing insight into negotiation dynamics and the cautious, incremental steps towards deeper economic integration in a region characterised by significant diversity in economic development and political systems. We also map commitment mechanisms to cooperation instruments to demonstrate how soft-law processes can produce complex economic effects within heterogeneous regulatory systems

Asian studies · Diversity (politics) · Liberalization · Negotiation · Outcome (game theory) · Parliament · Politics · Process (computing) · Global trade and economics · Quality of Life Measurement · World Trade Organization Law