The Regional and Multilateral Dilemna: Institutions Do Matter

The world trade has been p olitically framed towards liberalism and "openness". It is evident that this openness has its own grades and interests that command it. Developing countries have been directed, and pushed towards a playing ground they fear and ignore. But some would argue that even developed countries have to go through such stages. The whole difference here is the gap between where the latter stood when they decided to move toward openness and where developing countries do stand today. A simple and obvious proof of that is the increasing number of regional trade agreements (RTAs in following papers for convenience) that most countries have adopted. If we agree that regional networking should serve coordinating interests, RTAs came to answer a multilateral dilemma: multilateral negotiations are asking different and diversified countries, economies and cultures, to melt into a single frame defined by the "Triade", the world powers. In this paper we will examine the regional trade in the context of world trade (part 1) and contrast regionalism and multilateralism. My conclusion that regional agreements hinder the progress of a fair and dynamic multilateral governance and reduce its institutional progress.