Post-Brexit Britain in A World of Preferential Trade Agreements (PTAs)

Here is a Brexit conference organized by Luca Rubini at the University of Birmingham on Feb 24, 2017:

This conference has two goals. The first is to explore the important legal and political questions about the new role of the UK in the international trade context, and in particular with respect to the need to enter into several Preferential Trade Agreements (PTAs), that a possible Brexit raises. The second objective is to broaden the view and discuss the state of the art in the PTAs world by considering both horizontal issues and specific issues.

Key-note Speakers: Dr. Lorand Bartels (University of Cambridge) and Ms. Lilja Ólafsdóttir (Reykjavik University, Attorney at Law, former Legal Council at the EFTA Secretariat and negotiator for Iceland on FTAs and the EEA Agreement)

Dr. Rilka Dragneva-Lewers (Birmingham)
Sohyun Lee (LSE)
Rafael Lima Sakr (LSE)

Dr. Luca Rubini (Birmingham)
Ira Ryk-Lakhman (UCL)
Andrea Rocco (Birmingham)
Natasha Georgiou (Reading)

Dr. Maria-Anna Corvaglia (Birmingham)
Dr. Billy Melo Araujo (Queen's University Belfast)
I-Ju Chen (Birmingham)
June Namgoong (UCL)

With regard to the PTA horizontal issues, here are my thoughts.  If we get to the point where the UK is actually negotiating PTAs, the UK should keep these PTAs simple.  If they get bogged down with ISDS, IP, labor and environment issues, the agreements will be controversial and take a long time to negotiate. More here.