Free Trade Area of the Americas Agreement (FTAA)

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In December 1994, the Summit of the Americas was held to begin the effort to unite the economies of the Western Hemisphere. Since then, there have been several Ministerial meetings and Summits to negotiate the proposed agreement. The FTAA will be established by 2005 with the goal of progressively eliminating barriers to trade and investment in the region.

Sources for the draft text of FTAA

• FTAA Draft Agreement (Official FTAA web site).
• Foriegn Trade Information System (OAS), Draft Agreements.

Selected Sources for Commentary and Background Information on FTAA

• FTAA Official Web Site.
• USTR Western Hemisphere Web Site.
• Draft FTAA Texts (Worldtradelaw.net).
• FTAA Watch (World Trade Online) (UCB only). To access from home, be sure to set the proxy settings on your browser. Once the proxy settings have been set, you will be prompted for your CALNET user id and passphrase.
• Foreign Trade Information System (OAS), FTAA Process.
• Preeg, Ernest, From Here to Free Trade: Essays in Post-Uruguay Round Trade Strategy (Washington [D.C.]: Center for Strategic and International Studies; Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1998) [KF1609 .P74 1998].
• Toward Free Trade in the Americas (Washington, D.C.: Organization of American States: Brookings Institution Press, 2001) [KC14 .T69 2001].
• International Trade Reporter (Washington, D.C.:BNA, 1954-) [KF1975.A15 I57] Also available on LEXIS, WESTLAW, and on the BNA Publications database through the Law Library web site. (UCB only).
• Since this is such a new topic, the most current source of commentary will be journal articles. See the periodicals section of this guide for help with researching articles on this topic.

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Prepared by Marci Hoffman, International and Foreign Law Librarian, UC Berkeley Law Library, January 2004.