The McGill Faculty of Law Preferential and Regional Trade Agreements Database is part of an interdisciplinary project under the auspices of the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) and the Dobson Fund "John Durnford, William Tetley and Jacques Tétrault Research Initiatives." The objective of the PTAs & RTAs Database is to provide the text-searchable electronic versions of all Preferential and Regional Trade Agreements such as Custom Unions and Free Trade Agreements that have been notified to the World Trade Organization's Committee on Regional Trade Agreements, and are in force, plus many that have not been notified to the WTO.

Among the members of the PTAs & RTAs research team are Professors Armand de Mestral, William Watson (McGill University), Ljiljana Biukovic (British Columbia), and Martha O'Brien ( Victoria); Advisers Professors: Jan A. Winter (Free University of Amsterdam), and Lorand Bartels (Cambridge); Participating Students: José-Cuauhtémoc Solis, Mohammad Nsour, Viet Dung DO, Anne-Marie Loong, Chunbao Liu (McGill University) and Alireza Falsafi; Marie-Claire Cordonier-Seggers (CISDL); Jarrod Hepburn (Australia); Martin Endicott (U. Penn./CISDL).

The PTAs & RTAs Database contains a wide-ranging compilation of texts of multiple regional and preferential trade agreements which can be keyword searched on the entire database, individually downloaded in PDF format, or directly accessed on the respective federal agencies for which external links are provided. The PTAs & RTAs Database also provides links to similar resources on the WWW and an expanding bibliography related to the subject.

The PTAs & RTAs Database is a work in progress. Its goal is to provide a one-stop comprehensive resource to access current information concerning the proliferation of preferential and regional trade agreements. However, access to some sections of the database is restricted to individuals involved in the project. Management of passwords to access the database is controlled by the head of the project Professor Armand de Mestral and any potential collaboration should be directly addressed through his office.

The Faculty of Law at McGill University maintains this website to enhance public access to information about preferential and regional trade agreements. The information provided on this site is not necessarily comprehensive, complete, accurate or up to date. Our goal is to keep this information timely and accurate. All questions, comments and inquiries concering this database should be directed to Chunbao Liu. If errors are brought to our attention, we will try to correct them. However, the Faculty of Law at McGill University accepts no responsibility or liability whatsoever with regard to the information on this site or any linked external sites.