Until December 31, 2007

2006 - 2007

Amid the burgeoning of regional economic integration (FTAs, EPAs, customs unions) since the second half of the 1990s, there are some aspects that require scrutiny. This phenomenon has been arousing intense interest in many fields of the social sciences, but generally the analysis of its legal aspects has lagged behind. Similarly to the WTO, regional economic integration is conducted with large amounts of legal documentation, and this constitutes a trade "agreement" pursuant to GATT Article 24. Accordingly, legal analysis must be a core policy tool with regard to the design of the systems and to their operation after they have come into being. On this basis, in our research we make issue-specific comparative studies of the systems in the major cases of regional economic integration that have been in force up till now, and elucidate the classification of the designs of legal systems in regional economic integration, and their special characteristics. In this way we will show what options are possible for orderly integration from a legal perspective, and how these can aid the effectiveness of economic integration.