Gladshtein Anna Leonidivna A. Trends in the development of regulation of competition in regional trade agreements.

This dissertation discusses current trends in the developments of legal regulation of competition in regional trade agreements. Theoretical characteristic of the regional trade agreements is conducted, namely peculiarities of its legal nature and the place in the system of sources of international private law; provided an analysis of the provisions of the effective national legislation of Ukraine on competition and the rules on competition in regional trade agreements; the special features of dispute resolution for regional trade agreements has been determined. The Author states that regional trade agreements should be qualified as international treaties in content and treaty-making, thus the matter of its place in the system of international law sources is broadly in line with general matters of international treaties in the mentioned system. This dissertation proves that despite the pro forma absence of competitive rules hierarchy under the regional trade agreements and other integrational organizations (in particular, WTO), the legal regulation of competition under the regional trade agreements shall be in accordance with general provisions on competition under WTO law. In the opinion of the Author, the prime driver of subsequent competition legislation development is Ukraine-European Union Association Agreement, which provided for obligations on implementation of EU law into national legislation (in particular, in field of legal regulation of competition). However, harmonization of national legislation with international politics in the field of competition shall depend on the ground rules of competition. The Author concludes that availability of efficient mechanisms on dispute resolutions both under the WTO law and regional trade agreements are aimed at the prevention of adoption of the rules inconsistent with WTO Agreements or regional trade agreement at the level of national legislation. One of the key goals of dispute settlement mechanism both in WTO and regional trade agreements is supporting of the benefits between the participants of multilateral trading system. This dissertation constitutes unique research in legal models of regulation of competition relations in regional trade agreements. Author has investigated current approaches to determining basic definitions in the sphere of competition in regional trade agreements; in details analyzed institutes of anti-competitive practices and trade defence measures in regional trade agreements. The Author takes note, that the general trend of competition relations regulation in the world is its objectification under the regional trade agreements, which raises from the failure of WTO Law instruments to essentially regulate of all features of competition relations. The Author also states that the provisions on competition under the regional trade agreements are substantially different in both content and structure: from existence of solely declaratory rules of protection necessity of competition to independent chapters (sections) with a fully regulations on competition. The particular attention is attached to the specific features of the legal regulation of competition in the certain spheres of economic activity: legal regulation of competition in investment, provision of services, performance of works, government procurement and protection of intellectual property rights. The Author points out that mutual regulation of investment and competition can be formalized under two legal constructions: (1) competition regulation under the rules on investment (in this case obligations raised from competition shall be qualified as sectoral rules) and (2) investment regulation under the rules on competition (in named contest the investment rules are understood as international treaties or its separate chapters, which regulate investments). The Author notes that contracts covering services under regional trade agreements are substantially different from contact for the provision of services under the Civil Code of Ukraine. In particular, in terms of wider approach for services contract under the WTO Law, which covers not solely services, as they recognized under the national legislation, but also work performance. The stated wider approach also displays itself in the possibility of application such legal construction as “trade of services”, which does not appear under the national legislation because of strict recognition of services as of object that could be only “vested in”.