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17 Eur. L.J. 561 (2011)
Introduction: The Institutionalisation of Regional Trade Agreements Worldwide: New Dynamics and Future Scenarios

handle is hein.journals/eurlj17 and id is 561 raw text is: European Law Journal, Vol. 17, No. 5, September 2011, pp. 561-567. C 2011 Blackwell Publishing Ltd., 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford, OX4 2DQ, UK and 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA Introduction: The Institutionalisation of Regional Trade Agreements Worldwide: New Dynamics and Future Scenarios Francesco Duina and Sonia Morano-Foadi* We live in an age of regional trade agreements (RTAs). According to the World Trade Organisation (WTO), nearly 200 RTAs were in force at the start of 2010.1 If RTAs currently being negotiated, signed but not yet in force, and those in the proposal stages are taken into account, the figure exceeds 400. With the exception of perhaps fewer than 15 countries (for instance, Madagascar, San Marino and Somalia), every nation on earth belongs to one or more RTAs. Matters were quite different as recently as a couple of decades ago. In Asia, for instance, there was only one RTA in 1995, but by 2010 analysts were counting 61 such arrangements.2 Of all RTAs, the EU has received the most scholarly and public attention. It is, after all, one of the oldest and by most measures the most successful of all RTAs. But for the most ardent of intergovernmentalists, the history of the EU has been at least in part a history of institutionalisation. The legal system of the EU, for instance, has grown well beyond the boundaries set by the original treaties and later agreements and treaties both in terms of the main competences of the EU and the supremacy of EU law over national laws. The reach of its governing entities-such as the European Commission, the Court of Justice of the EU and the European Parliament have gradually and steadily increased over time. All the while, parallel processes of policy making have developed, such as the Open Method of Coordination and its reliance on voluntary policy learning across the member states, and the growing role of industry associations in standard setting. At the national level, in turn, the traditional autonomy and integ- rity of nation states have been challenged: participation in the EU project means acceptance of Europeanisation (in the legal, administrative, judicial and other realms) to at least some extent, as the experience of the recent entrants from Central and Eastern Europe indicates. The initial reaction of observers to the explosion of RTAs was to account for their impressive growth and spread and to identify and to compare their grand objectives. It * Francesco Duina, Professor, Department of Sociology, Bates College, Lewiston, ME, USA http:// www.bates.edulx32926.xml; and Sonia Morano-Foadi, Reader in Law and Director of the Centre for Legal Research and Policy Studies, School of Law, Oxford Brookes University, Oxford, UK, http:// www.brookes.ac.uk/. According to the WTO, RTAs occur whenever two or more nations (or blocs of nations) agree to liberalise trade across their borders via the removal of a combination of tariff and non-tariff barriers. For up-to-date figures, see the WTO's database on regional trading agreements available at http://rtais.wto.org/UI/ PublicAIIRTAList.aspx (accessed 1 March 2011). 2 G.Wignaraja and D. Lazaro, North-South vs. South-South Asian FTAs: Trends, Compatibilities, and Ways Forward, UNU-CRIS Working Paper Series 2010/3, 8 (2010).

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