What can be regulated by bilaterals and what conclusions can be drawn from the results
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The chapter below provides more details on the major issues covered and indicates what the experiences are of negotiating these items in bilaterals. This includes trade in goods, trade in services, intellectual property, investment, competition policies, and government procurement. Beyond this, some bilaterals also include provisions on labour and environment and wider sustainable development objectives.
Trade in goods Trade liberalisation in goods generally includes tariff reductions as well as reduction of non tariff barriers (NTBs). WTO members have bound their tariffs for all or most of their goods in the WTO (although least developed countries (LDCs), especially, still have a large percentage of tariff lines unbound), which means that there is a maximum possible tariff they have set for each product. Any tariffs above that level would be in conflict with WTO obligations. Many countries actually apply tariffs that are lower than the bound (maximum) tariffs, which are called the applied rates. Under WTO rules, only when countries negotiate bilateral or regional free trade agreements with each other can they apply different tariffs to those they apply to any other member coun-
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