Regional trade agreements
Trade facilitation under the regional trade agreement umbrella: Origins and evolution
The proliferation of regional trade agreements (RTAs) over the past few decades has sparked intense debate on their purpose structure and impact. Trade facilitation (TF) aspects did not figure too prominently in these discussions and have only recently attracted more attention. For many years they merely played a marginal role both in the agreements themselves and in the related analysis.
Regional Rules in the Global Trading System
The proliferation of regional trade agreements (RTAs) over the past two decades has highlighted the need to look closely at the relationships between regional and WTO rules or disciplines. A major obstacle to advancing understanding of RTAs is the absence of detailed information about their contents. This has limited the debate between those who view RTAs as discriminatory instruments hostage to protectionist interests and those who see them as conducive to multilateral trade opening.