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Email this citationCIAO DATE: 07/03
Japan-U.S. Telecomunications Negotiations in A New Phase: States and Markets - Final Report by the STudy group on U.S. foreign Economic Policy Making Process
The Japan Institute of International Affairs
November 2002
For more than two decades, Japan and the United States have negotiated over trade in telecomunications equipment and services. Under the changing circumstances, however, Japan-U.S. telecommunications negotiations entered upon a new phase in the late 1990s. The issue of services has become a major point of contention, further international domestic regulatory politics. Last but not least, the World Trade Organizations (WTO) Telecom Pact of 1997 provided the parties with new opportunities and constraints, possibly altering the course of interactions among them.
In this paper, we examine the new phase of Japan-U.S. telecommunications negotiations by analyzing the cases of procurement and interconnection charges of Nippon Telegraph and Telephone (NTT). Our argument is that the bilateral telecommunications talks between Japan and the United States are now conducted within the purview of multilateral institutions, but are characterized by "bilateral twists" to multilateralism.
