International trade and investment are of considerable economic and political importance for Europe. The EU is negotiating trade agreements globally, involving the abolition of tariffs, the reduction of non-tariff barriers to trade, and the introduction of dispute settlement mechanisms. However, the example of the controversial Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) with the USA has shown the challenges of EU trade policy. The objective of the EU Trade and Investment Policy ITN (EUTIP) is to foster interdisciplinary research into the evolving international trade policy of the EU with a view to create a significantly increased European knowledge base and research capacity on EU law and policy of the regulation of international trade through free trade agreements (FTAs) with third countries, thus helping Europe to safeguard the benefits of international trade (wealth, jobs, etc.) while addressing the challenges of its regulation (competence, democracy, accountability, environmental- and labour, standards, etc.). It is argued that the EU trade and investment policy pursued through FTAs is evolving into an entirely new legal, economic, and political sub-discipline closely related to and originating in EU and international trade law, economics, and politics. This new field of law, economics, and politics is wide-ranging, including aspects already addressed in existing FTAs and fields of trade and competition law currently regulated in the Treaty on the Functioning of the EU (TFEU), the relevant decision-making mechanisms, the relationship between the relevant legal systems, and dispute settlement. Moreover, the ITN investigated Transatlantic agreements as precedents and possible templates for third generation trade agreements of the EU with other parts of the world. The network is an interdisciplinary, intersectoral collaboration pooling world-leading researchers and practitioners from all relevant disciplines of law - EU constitutional, internal market, and external relations law, international trade law, and international law, as well as political science, international relations, business studies, and economics. EUTIP fully integrates academic and non-academic Beneficiaries and Partner Organisations, including think tanks, lobbyists, regulatory bodies, law firms, third country academic institutions, and an international organisation. Furthermore, the network supports and enhances the process of converting research results into policy papers through partnership with high-impact policy research units at the forefront of European policy research and policy making. The work consisted of 3 substantive work packages on (1) governance, (2) regulation, and (3) multilateralism and regionalism. 12 PhD research projects are supervised by academics of the 11 Beneficiaries with an interdisciplinary training programme covering the legal, political, and economic foundations of EU trade and investment policy and an interdisciplinary and intersectoral programme of secondments involving 18 Partner Organisations. 2 PhD research projects are already completed, most projects will be completed before the end of 2021.
