FREE MOVEMENT OF GOODS - QUANTITATIVE RESTRICTIONS - IN THE EUROPEAN COMMUNITY AND THE ASEAN ECONOMIC COMMUNITY

Abstract: My thesis consists of three main parts. The first part, Chapter 2, describes the legal framework regulating free movement of goods, with the focus on quantitative restrictions in the EC. The starting point of this chapter is the current approach to harmonization in completing the internal market. This section considers the limits of economic integration prior to 1986 and the important steps taken since then to complete the single market. After that, in the second section, I present the basic provisions of EC Treaty, namely Articles 28, 29 and 30, governing the prohibition of quantitative restrictions between Member States in order to facilitate the free movement of goods. The third section analyses some problems concerning the need to protect intellectual property rights and the benefits of free movement of goods in the single market. Basically, the answer to this issue provided by the ECJ is that the Treaty would protect the existence of an intellectual property right, but the exercise of this right would still be subject to the strictness of Articles 28, 29, 81 and 82 EC. The second part, Chapter 3, describes the policies on free flow of goods in ASEAN. This chapter begins with some general comments on ASEAN's history, including the trade policies of specific ASEAN countries which fall into two phases: from 1967 (when ASEAN was established) to 1992 (when the launching of a scheme toward an AFTA was adopted)&semic and from 1992 to nowadays: a phase with very many important changes. In the next two sections, I analyze ASEAN's legal framework governing free flow of goods between member countries in AFTA. I especially concentrate on highlighting the Declaration of ASEAN Concord II, according to which an ASEAN Economic Community, the end-goal of ASEAN economic integration, including a single market, will be established in 2020, together with two other communities: the ASEAN Security Community and the ASEAN Socio-Cultural Community. The third part, Chapter 4, contains a study on free movement of goods in the single market of ASEAN from the EU. In order to learn the lessons of EU legal and economic integration, in particular how to design the legal framework regulating free movement of goods in a single market, it is necessary to determine the basic similarities and differences between ASEAN Economic Community and EC. These are the contents of the first two sections. Based on these findings, the last one provides some recommendations for promoting the establishment of an ASEAN Economic Community in the future.