At ICTSD for a number of years we have been closely studying the nature and evolution of today’s global trade and investment system, better described using Keohane and Victor’s “regime complex” conceptualisation. The principles, norms, rules and procedures of the quasi-universal multilateral trade system embodied in the GATT-World Trade Organization (WTO) and its agreements have been, and remain today, the spine of the global system of arrangements for economic cooperation and integration. But in the past few years the track of preferential trade agreements (RTAs in WTO speak) has exploded as countries seek to add to their multilateral terms of globalisation by selectively participating in deeper integration schemes in variable geographic geometry. In 2016, 270 different RTAs have been notified to the WTO and are currently in force , and several others are under negotiation. Meanwhile, almost 3,300 bilateral investment treaties (BITs) have been concluded , with a great share of them containing trade-related provisions critical in a 21st century global economy. Many of these agreements have evolved through time and most now contain disciplines that are wider in scope, deeper in their integration, and significantly more sophisticated than the multilateral trading system — what is known in specialised literature...
Written by Marie Chamay