The Foundation of the ASEAN Economic Community: An Institutional and Legal Profile. By Stefano Inama and Edmund W. Sim

摘要

The book provides a critical review of the current state of institutions and legal instruments of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) with regards to establishing the ASEAN Economic Community (AEC). The analysis was done by examining existing agreements and institutional arrangements in support of the AEC and comparing them with the North American Free Trade Area (NAFTA) and the European Union (EU), currently the most well-known integration models around the globe. While the EU has well-developed supra-regional institutions tasked to ensure implementation of and compliance with agreements in the regional bloc, and NAFTA has detailed agreements and strong dispute resolution mechanisms and processes that implement the agreements, the authors conclude that ASEAN institutions are not sufficiently developed to implement agreements among member countries. The available legal instruments also fall short of providing the foundations necessary to establish the AEC. As highlighted in the various chapters of the book, these deficiencies make it difficult for ASEAN to achieve its goal of economic integration and thus a single market and production base.