In his Cato Online Forum essay, Georgetown University law professor Joost Pauwelyn deftly rebuts some of the central — but, as you will be convinced, outdated — objections to the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership. Joost’s essay supports two main points:

First, the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) is less of a threat to multilateral trade than were first generation free trade agreements (FTAs), which involved a proliferation of preferential tariff treatment. And second, unlike these shallow FTAs, deep FTAs – such as TTIP – force us to re-think the operating system of the World Trade Organization (WTO).

Thoughout his presentation, Pauwelyn challenges certain long-held assumptions about the trade-diverting effects of preferential trade agreements, making a compelling case for why TTIP is a different animal. He also exposes some of the conventional wisdom and calls into question some of the purist gospel about the need for WTO primacy, arguing that its role should be diminished and more focued.

Read Joost’s essay here.

Read the other essays published in conjuction with the Cato TTIP conference here.