Regional Integration (Supranational)

The New Regionalism

Regional organizations and agreements are proliferating all over the world, and more than 50% of international trade is now conducted within preferential trading agreements organized at the regional level. Regional integration has proceeded in waves, the most recent of which began in the wake of the Cold War in the early 1990s. The EU's single market was completed in 1992, and the treaty at Maastricht that year set the timetable for achieving economic and monetary union by 1999. The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) was signed by Canada, Mexico, and the United States in 1992. The Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) was established in 1989 with the goal of becoming a free trade area (a goal not yet realized), and the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN), though established in 1967, created a free trade area in 1992. It expanded its membership and its integration activities in the 1990s, and since the East Asian financial crisis of 1997. The three regional powers—China, Japan, and South Korea—have been included in regular ASEAN summit meetings.

These three sites of economic regionalism—Europe, North America, and East Asia—are home to the majority of the world's intraregional trade and the most robust regional institutions, but steps toward regionalization have been taken elsewhere as well. There are regional organizations among states in the Middle East (Gulf Cooperation Council), Africa (South African Customs Union, West African Economic and Monetary Union), and South America (Southern Common Market [Mercado Común del Sur, MERCOSUR], Andean Community), and there are free trade agreements in [Page 2239]regions all over the world. As of July 2010, more than 474 regional trading agreements had been reported to the World Trade Organization (WTO). Of the agreements already in force, over 90% are free trade agreements. Almost every WTO member is party to at least one regional trade agreement, and these agreements often intersect in complex ways. At the same time, the depth and scope of regional integration are highly diverse, with the EU representing a level of both economic and political integration not seen elsewhere on the globe, while many regional agreements are little more than symbolic acts that have not generated any meaningful regional economic or political cooperation.

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