Secretariats, or a permanent management structure, play a critical role in the delivery and implementation of international agreements including trade deals. They provide the backbone to administer the day-to-day functions of keeping such pacts alive and ensuring that parties stick to their obligations. Secretariats come in all shapes, sizes and levels of formality. Running an institution by informal committees alone can be a recipe for allowing members to shirk their implementation commitments. It is highly likely that many of the benefits of trade agreements will go unrealized. Countries in the region are signing on to a host of often overlapping free trade agreements (FTAs), creating a so-called “noodle bowl” effect in trade parlance; but a number of them have no permanent structures in place to monitor the agreements. Almost a year after entering into force, the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP), despite having provisions requiring the creation of a Secretariat as the very first order of business, has yet to set up one.

Five Obstacles to Creating Asia’s New World Order

RCEP was certainly not launched in late 2012 with the intention of managing trade in a system of collapsing global rules. It is struggling to get across the finish line in November after years of fraught negotiations. Getting RCEP done is imperative. Asia needs RCEP more than it ever could have imagined at the outset. There are at least five key challenges ahead in meeting the rapidly approaching November deadline for closure:

1: Japan and South Korea are currently embroiled in a rapidly escalating trade and security dispute. The original problem stems from long-simmering historical grievances that have typically been tempered by the intervention of the United States. However, the breakdown of the global order means that there is currently no handbrake stopping these two neighbors from continuing to intensify their disagreements. It has already spilled over from trade to the security realm.