Foreword

Summary

This two-volume book provides a critical addition to the literature on international trade law. In chapters that carefully describe and analyse a complex web of multilateral, regional and bilateral trade agreements, this collection shows how, why, when and to what extent states have negotiated and signed regional and bilateral trade agreements in recent years.

It is well recognised by now that the landscape of international trade agreements has changed dramatically over the past decades – from bilateral agreements in the early nineteenth century to the growth of multilateralism and regionalism under the GATT and its successor, the WTO. Until fairly recently, the focus of international trade law was, for the most part, the GATT/WTO, the European Community, the NAFTA and MERCOSUR. However, following the 1999 Seattle Ministerial Conference of the WTO, we have now entered a period that has resurrected bilateralism and created a new form of ‘loose’ regionalism. As a result of the proliferation of such agreements, international trade law now consists of hundreds of new agreements, usually between just two countries, although sometimes more.

Illustrating the changing cycle of such agreements, this collection identifies the multi-faceted evolution of trade agreements and provides the first comprehensive look at the ‘law and policy’ of this recent wave of ‘preferential’ trade agreements (PTAs). The first volume explores different kinds of PTAs, situating each in its particular social, political, economic and cultural context, and offering an assessment of the substantive law of these agreements.