The Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) in the Asia-Pacific from a legal perspective

Abstract

The Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership, better known as the RCEP, is a free trade agreement signed by 15 countries from the Asia-Pacific region in November 2020. It took effect in January 2022. After presenting an overview of the agreement, this paper looks at the negotiations and the current state of the RCEP. It then focuses on its basic content, particularly from a legal standpoint, as it analyses the institutional framework, the decision rule, its legal sources and the dispute settlement system, without omitting to look at the agreement from an economic perspective.

Keywords

• asia-pacific
• regional comprehensive economic partnership (rcep)
• free trade area
• legal-institutional framework
• consensus decision
• dispute settlement
• economy