The Post-Uruguay Round era has seen a proliferation of regional preferential trade agreements (PTAs) as well as progressive multilateral trade liberalization initiatives. This has stimulated theoretical discussion on whether the policy of pursuing PTAs will have a malign or a benign impact on multilateralism. In the former case, proliferation of PT As may increase protection in global trade due to trade diversion effects, thereby creating impediments to multilateral freeing of global trade. In the latter case, the expansion of PTA membership could ultimately lead to non-discriminatory global free trade. At the core of this discussion is the question of how to explain the preference for PTA membership. While some economists view the expansion of PTA membership as exogenously determined, participants of the Fourth Annual Workshop of the Network EU-LDC Trade and Capital Relations also considered endogenous factors explaining increased PTA membership. This book offers a closer look at the motives of policy makers in both developed and developing countries to still adhere to PTAs, notwithstanding the theoretical superiority of multilateralism, and addresses the question of how to bring order into the world trading system. These issues are dealt with in 9 chapters by scholars from both the EU and LDCs. Each paper is discussed in terms of its policy relevance by a policy maker as well as by an academic specialized in the field.

The book deals with both the short and the long-run effects of the Uruguay Round: the reduction in the obstacles to trade, the enlargement of the multilateral system, the new institutional framework and the balance between regionalism and multilateralism in world trade relations. Its conclusions are based on theory, political economy and empirical analysis.

Analyses the relationship between regional trade agreements and multilateral trade regulation in the wake of the Uruguay Round held in Liege, October 1996. The first part of the book is devoted to a comparative analysis of the major trade agreements in Europe, the Americas and the Asia Pacific Area. Covers also an emerging new form of inter-regionalism. The second part presents a comparative analysis of the treatment of selected issues under the major regional trade agreements in the world and their relation with existing or emerging multilateral rules. Finally, discusses the extent to which multilateral rules acted as a constraint on regional trade arrangements under the GATT or the new WTO.

The issue of regionalism versus multilateral agreements such as the Uruguay Round remains a crucial one, as is argued in the first five chapters of this volume.

The completion of the Uruguay Round in April 1994 has not solved all the problems. The issue of regionalism versus multilateral agreements such as the Uruguay Round remains a crucial one, as is argued in the first five chapters of this volume. Successive chapters deal with specific issues such as green protectionism, technical standards, intellectual property rights protection, the effects of disarmament on international trade, the effects of abolishing the Multi-fibre Agreement and the external impact of the European Union's Common Agricultural Policy. The volume, on the whole, takes up where the newly created World Trade Organization will have to start.

Are regional arrangements stumbling blocks or, in fact building blocks for a more integrated and successful international economy? This book is an exploration of traditional and new perspectives on international cooperation through regional and multilateral mechanisms.