International trade regulations refer to a set of codified rules and laws that manage, control and regulate all types of trade among different countries of the world. Based on the theory of economic liberalism, these regulations came into existence in the backdrop of World War II. General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) was the first multilateral treaty formed to regulate the rapidly rising trend of cross border trade. The fast economic and industrial growth in Europe and America and expanding world markets created the need for a full-fledged organization to manage international trade. Thus, World Trade Organization (WTO) was established in 1995 under the "Marrakesh Agreement."

The WTO aimed at arbitrating bilateral and multilateral trade agreements, formulating and implementing trade mechanism, promoting free trade around the globe and solving tariff and non-tariff hiccups in international trade.

The world trading system is based on the notion that economic relations form an integral part of foreign policy, and national economies are interdependent on one another (Jackson, 1997). James Forrestal once told, "For the only way in which a durable peace can be created is by world-wide restoration of economic activity and international trade."

The proponents of the New World Order, formed in 1990s, are of the view that international trade should be based on free market economy- a system in which all nation states can participate without tariffs and embargos disputes.

With the dawn of the 21th century, international trade gained some new dimensions and trends which...

China, with the souring economic development, emerged as a new potential competitor, triggering the disputes like tariff settlements and currency manipulation.
As regionalization was a key part of the post-cold war era, there came a surge in the Regional Trade Agreements (RTAs) in 1990s (Crawford and Laird, 2000). This is evident from the fact that around about 500 RTAs are registered with the WTO currently, and many are under consideration. The major part of these RTAs consists of Free Trade Agreements (FTAs).

The mushrooming growth in the RTAs has made the world trade regimes and regulations more complex, and, on some occasions, there comes about a clash between the RTAs and international trade agreements. However, the WTO manages to maintain a balance between these two systems.

The biggest RTAs of the modern era include European Free Trade Agreement (EFTA), Mercosur Regional Trade Organization and African Regional Trade Agreements (ARTAs)-out of the three, the EFTA poses to be more effective and successful.

The EFTA is a common treaty among 27 members of European Union (EU) based on single market, free trade and single currency. This RTA has helped a lot in perking up the economies of all the member states.

The AFTA covers all the members of the African Union (AU); however, unlike EFTA, it has certain limitations, thanks to the variable geometry. James Thuo Gathii, in his book 'African Regional Trade Agreements as Legal Regimes', has termed the AFTA as a flexible regime (Gathii, 2011).

Mercosur Regional Trade…