Régionalisme ou multilatéralisme

The World Trade Organization is an international organization dealing with the rules governing trade between countries. It is above all a negotiating framework. The overriding objective of this system is to help to promote as much as possible the freedom of trade, while avoiding undesirable side effects and removing obstacles. Otherwise speaking, the rules set up must be predictable and transparent. However, the foundations of the global trading system have been undermined, subtly but profoundly, after the monetary and financial crises. Around the world, concerns about the economic security of states, monetary security, security of supply and markets have resurfaced. To overcome these threats, many regional economic agreements were created. The ASENA, the European Union, the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation, the North American Free Trade Agreement, etc. Since the early 1990s, the number of such agreements has grown steadily. To illustrate, in 2005, a total of 330 agreements had been notified to the WTO. The goal pursued by these alliances of countries in regional economic blocks is mainly to facilitate trade and promote their development or growth. On the other hand, the development of these regional economic blocs has raised many questions. One of the main questions is whether or not the rise of this regional economic blocs threatens the free trade progress made by the World Trade Organization. In this essay, we will develop this discussion in order to obtain a global point of view on the question and to allow to bring elements of answers.

1. Regionalism real constraint for the multilateralism?

1. A fear of trade diversion.

With the development of international exchanges, areas of regional integration, such as NAFTA or the European Union, have grown. These regional agreements are an exception to the most-favoured-nation clause but are accepted to the extent that they lead to further trade liberalization within the zone and without increasing trade restrictions regarding countries outside the zone. Thus, additional trade would be created between the countries of the zone, consistent with the supposed advantages of free trade. In fact, it is generally observed that these zones have "created trade". However, trade diversion is perceived as a threat against the establishment of the WTO by some economists. This economic theory consists in increasing intra-zone trade by opposing barriers to more competitive products from countries outside this zone. Contradictory principle to the articles established by the WTO stipulating that in the establishment of a free-trade area or a customs union, customs duties and other barriers to trade must be reduced or eliminated, for the most part, from trade in all sectors and between members of the group. Non-members should not find that the treatment applied to their trade with the grouping countries is more rigorous than it was before the establishment of the group. However, up to now, no scientific evidence has been provided regarding this fear of trade diversion to the detriment of former foreign partners outside the zone. On the contrary, the European example shows that the fact that the European Union's trade developed very rapidly between member countries did not prevent an even faster development of trade with countries outside the European Union.

1. Regional economics blocs, constituent elements of the multilateral economic.

The question of whether "discriminatory liberalization" in the context of regional integration agreements is positive and may be considered a constituent element of the multilateral economic regime or whether it represents a hindrance in both political and scientific circles. If economists like Bhagwati stigmatize the discriminating side of regional integration agreements, which they reject, others like Summers favour liberalization first and foremost. A nuanced examination shows that there is no ready answer. From a purely historical point of view, regional integration tendencies have often enriched the GATT system. The customs cut decided during the Kennedy Round are often seen as a reaction to the founding of the European Economic Community. Similarly, the European Community internal market program has likely contributed to the adoption of new disciplines in the WTO system during the Uruguay Round. Regional economic blocs have a limited number of members, forming a homogenous group and allowing for more comprehensive integration than in the WTO. They are sort of laboratories, where other stages of the liberalization process can be experimented. The successes of these regional approaches can later be integrated into the WTO. For example, some of the rules put in place within regional integrations have opened the way to WTO agreements. Services, intellectual property, environmental standards, as well as investment and competition policies are issues that have all been raised in regional negotiations and which subsequently led to agreements or have become topics of discussion at the WTO. Despite this stimulating effect, we must not forget that the differences in interpretation of Article XXIV underline the inability of the WTO rules to prevent regional economic blocs from being isolated, in case of doubt, in their fortress.

1. The contribution of regionalism to the free trade.

1. Regionalism favours trade liberalization.

On one hand, the establishment of a free trade area or customs union of regional economic blocs promotes the liberalization of trade flows between participating countries without putting obstacles to trade with the rest of the world. In other words, regional integration should complement the multilateral trading system and not endanger it. The new economic and geopolitical context is changing the motivations of regional integrations. Their motivations are constantly evolving over the years and are very different from those observed in the 1960s. In this context of globalization, it becomes inconceivable for the economies to isolate themselves from the dominant dynamic. With this in mind, regional blocs have clearly understood that a refusal to integrate themselves into the globalization and to disconnect from the global market by replicating, at regional level, the strategy of industrialization by substitution of imports as has made Latin America in the 60s, can only be unfavourable for their economy. Such a regionalism, centred solely on its own regional integration, can obviously only constitute an obstacle to globalization. As a result, regionalism today is no longer self-centred, on the contrary it is open to exchanges outside of its integrations. It is therefore not antagonistic to globalization. Today, imperatives are different. There is a real need to create encouraging conditions for closer economic ties between various countries. This approach is intended to facilitate later integration of regional integrations into global circuits. Developing countries, for example, are gradually moving from an industrial strategy focused on the internal market to an industrial strategy geared towards international markets. In order to enable them to no longer remain prisoners of their national markets, the liberalization of trade in regional spaces allows companies in developing countries to expand their markets and to get used to the constraints of international competition. Regional economic blocs and participation in globalization would therefore be two steps in the same logical sequence. Regionalism would initially be the culmination of an existing regionalization and would allow a small country, for example, to gradually integrate into the world economy by stimulating intra-regional trade with close neighbours. Without being merely a step towards multilateralism, regionalism is a means of deepening free trade and responding to the shortcomings of multilateralism. Moreover, according to WTO literature, the current rise of regionalism is far from the evidence of the decline of multilateralism. On the contrary, they can be beneficial.

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