ABSTRACT
For most of the 20th century, following the Second World War, non-discrimination and multilateralism were core pillars of the international, rules-based trading system. From in the early 1990s onwards, however, the number of regional and bilateral trade agreements in force increased more than ten-fold, from the low 20s to 279 in 2017. Moreover, the qualitative nature of these agreements changed, beginning with the USA dropping its staunch support for multilateralism and joining the trend. Later, the revolution in information and communications technology (ITC) allowed increased fragmentation in trade and the further globalization of supply chains, which raised a host of new issues that trade negotiators struggle to address.
