1997 Articles

The Watering of Trade

Bhagwati, Jagdish N.

The proliferation of Preferential Trading Arrangements, especially of Free Trade Areas, has been characteristic of recent trade liberalization. In turn, many are based on the defining criterion of member countries sharing common waters: oceans, in particular, and now seas. It is suggested playfully that this "watering of trade" also shows the superiority of multilateral over preferential freeing of trade because the WTO would be host to the "largest water of all."