Regional and bilateral agreements play an integral role in the world trade arena. They can have a more immediate impact than multilateral negotiations, go beyond the multilateral consensus to promote greater liberalisation and address issues that do not make it on to the multilateral agenda.
Recent months have seen a flurry of activity as different jurisdictions build bridges in the form of traditional free trade agreements (FTAs) and new initiatives to encourage economic and trade cooperation. But this trend does not mean that the multilateral model is redundant – the World Trade Organisation (WTO) has also recently been called upon to tackle US violations of international trade rules.
