Choices and Consequences : Internationalizing Competition Policy after TPP
In its chapters on antitrust law, state-owned enterprise, and procurement, the Trans-Pacific Partnership aims to advance the project of “internationalizing” competition policy. This technocratic effort, even in modest forms, conceals deep problems flowing from divergent values, interests, and beliefs, such that grand multilateral efforts are unlikely to be sustainable. We may do better if we rely on a toolkit that is differentiated along at least three different dimensions, to increase the chances that jurisdictions can find common ground: (1) geographic scope (using regional tools as a “middle-layer” complement to multilateral and bilateral efforts); (2) obligatory force (using a proposed approach called “frameworks for contingent cooperation” as a complement to traditional legal tools and networks for cooperation); and (3) substantive scope (including the use of pure competition-policy instruments rather than relying solely on the coat-tails of integrated trade-liberalization efforts)