August 2016 Book Reviews 265 between national governments members or between ASEAN nationals. Chapter 4 offers options and recommendations to address the shortcomings and weaknesses of the current system on institutional and legal infrastructures without being prescriptive. It acknowledges that ultimately decisions will rest on ASEAN leaders and policymakers. Emphasis was made on institutional reforms, showing the need for national governments to relinquish some of their sovereignty to the ASEAN Secretariat to ensure implementation of and conformance to the agreements and policies. This is important because beyond 2015, much of the regional integration issues that ASEAN will be dealing with are related to post-border access; thus, stronger institutions are required. Chapter 5 provides the summary and conclusions, highlighting the need to revisit the agreements, their relevance and applicability in order to make the AEC an attractive single production base and single market for investors. In general, the main strength of the book is the authors’ analyses of the shortcomings and weaknesses of the institutional and legal foundations of the AEC. They provide a fresh perspective on the AEC, which is currently dominated by economic and political analyses. The analyses are provocative, yet reflective and pragmatic. This was shown by the authors’ approach of citing actual cases in ASEAN in the various chapters of the book. In order to illustrate what needs to be addressed, the authors highlight the implementation or non-implementation of its agreements and processes. Likewise, the options and recommendations in Chapter 4 are very relevant and timely as ASEAN is now working on its economic partnerships with TPP and EU. Unless the issues are dealt with, not only will the AEC goals be at risk, but ASEAN will also be at a disadvantage in these global arrangements. MYRNA S. AUSTRIA School of Economics, De La Salle University, 2401 Taft Avenue, Manila, Philippines email: myrna.austria@dlsu.edu.ph DOI: 10.1355/ae33-2m Rules of Origin in ASEAN: A Way Forward. By Stefano Inama and Edmund W. Sim. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014. Pp. 436. Although the world economy has seen an improvement in trade and investment relations, the various Regional Trading Arrangements (RTAs) which propel them — such as Free Trade Agreements (FTAs) — tend to discriminate against non-members. This is because FTA members enjoy preferential benefits (zero-tariffs or fewer non-tariff measures) over non-members. This imbalance in trade privileges has led to serious complications when countries engage in international trade. Rules of Origin (ROOs) are often the source of such problems; while they may be easy to implement to goods which are completely produced in one country, they become much harder to enforce on goods with component parts made in more than one country. Rules of Origin in ASEAN: A Way Forward discusses this issue in the context of the ASEAN Free Trade Agreement (AFTA) by providing a complete analysis of how ASEAN member states established their ROOs. The book begins with the development of ROOs in ASEAN countries from the early stages of ASEAN’s Preferential Trading Arrangements (PTAs) to the current situation under the ASEAN Trade in Goods Agreement (ATIGA). It also examines ASEAN’s various attempts to extend its internal ROOs to its non-ASEAN FTA partners. By doing so, Inama and Sim thoroughly explore the complexity of ASEAN’s current ROOs and explain their relative low utilization. The authors conclude the book by presenting an innovative solution: the use of self-certification to simplify the ROOs’ procedures. Through this book, Inama and Sim make a good contribution to the current debates about the ROOs within ASEAN’s RTAs. Its appendices are equipped with a collection of the ROOs within both AFTA and in ASEAN’s FTAs with its partner countries. However, the book lacks adequate empirical research into country-specific issues