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Australia’s trade negotiating strategy fundamentally flawed
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Australia’s trade negotiating strategy fundamentally flawed

A. Capling and J. Ravenhill
The Conversation, Vol.23 October 2014
The Conversation Media Group
2014
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Abstract

Ten years on from the Australia-US Free Trade Agreement, Australia is entering another round of negotiations towards the new and controversial Trans-Pacific Partnership. In this Free Trade Scorecard series, we review Australian trade policy over the years and where we stand today on the brink of a number of significant new trade deals. Students of international relations are often introduced to the problems involved in sustaining international cooperation through Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s fable of the stag and the hare. Rousseau’s story told of a group of hunters that went out in search of a deer. Only if they all worked together would they be successful in trapping the deer. But a single hunter acting alone could catch a hare. Distracted by an opportunity to do so, one hunter deserts the party chasing the deer – with the result that the deer escapes. The individual hunter catches a hare but because of the failure to cooperate the group misses out on the chance of trapping the deer, which would have brought greater benefits to all.

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