The Analysis And Revelation Of Development Tendency Of Regional Trade Agreements Under WTO Framework

Currently, various Regional Trade Agreements (RTAs) are developing rapidly in the directions of trans-regional, trans-continental and trans-oceanic under WTO system. The trend of the regional economic integration has an impact on WTO-led global multilateral trading system. This thesis has a comprehensive and thorough discussion about the relationship between regional economic integration and multilateral trading system. It attempts to provide an affective way of enhancing the development of global liberalization of trade, and proposes some strategies for our country to participate into RTAs better.This thesis analyzes current situation and reasons of the development of RTAs. There are complicated factors resulting in such an unusual outcome. Some of them could be originated from the legal defects in history, others include considerations of political security, diplomatic strategy and economic and trade interests. Then, the thesis combs and concentrates on elucidating to the relationship between RTAs and the multilateral trade system: On one hand, RTAs as an addition to WTO, have"compatibility".On the other hand, WTO carries on rules about RTAs in the international law meaning which include twenty-fourth clause of GATT and the"Understanding on the Interpretation of GATT 1994",the fifth clause of GATS,and Enabling Clauses. Then the thesis tries to analyze the conflicts and coordination between regional trade agreements and multilateral trading system.No matter how rapidly and vigorously the regional economic integration grows, it must operate from beginning to end under the framework of multilateral trading system. The author believes, with guiding ideology of the"open regionalism", RTAs will eliminate the negative effect of regionalism gradually, and WTO should practically launch its own reform. These regional economic organizations will certainly expand and gradually move towards unify, impel the world economics globalization together with the multilateral trading system.