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This article examines the impact and significance of the Crimea–Ukraine–Russia and the eurozone crises on relations among and between the EU’s three biggest member states – Britain, France and Germany – as well as their individual influence and roles within the EU. The Ukraine and eurozone crises have revealed and intensified three longer-term developments in contemporary European politics: Germany’s rise as the EU’s most powerful member state and its role as Europe’s indispensable policy broker; the resilience and centrality of Franco-German bilateralism, despite the growing power imbalance separating the two; and Britain’s diminished and diminishing role in EU affairs. To put the current period of turmoil in perspective, this article also aims to contribute to a better understanding of the operating logic of crisis, continuity and change in the relations of the EU’s big three member states.

The article analyzes the trend towards the privatization of global governance resulting from the crisis of multilateralism and the shift from the multilateral international system, based on nation States, to a global private market-based system with global private sector actors. The underlying question throughout it is if global public goods can be regulated by private global institutions. The tensions arising from this are expressed as the weakness of the multilateral system created with the Pax Americana after WWII.

En este editorial queremos pronunciarnos y proponer la construcción de un discurso integrador. Para ello intentamos explicar los procesos históricos y jurídicos en su complejidad y sus razones internas, presentando con honestidad las posiciones diferentes para así comprenderlas. Creemos que éste puede ser un servicio a nuestros lectores. En primer lugar abordamos dos perspectivas sobre la cuestión catalana: la histórica y la jurídica. A partir de ambas llegamos a una primera conclusión: ni la historia ni el derecho pueden resolver una cuestión que, con el paso del tiempo, no ha hecho otra cosa sino complicarse, especialmente en los últimos años, aunque ambas perspectivas ofrezcan alguna luz, pues aportan claves de comprensión. Realmente estamos convencidos de que ni una ni otra sirven por sí solas para resolver la cuestión. Sólo un pacto político puede orientar y posibilitar una solución estable. A fin de cuentas, articular un pacto político es también resultado de una historia y se ordena jurídicamente, pero supera ambas perspectivas pues requiere capacidad y voluntad de crear las condiciones para fundar una nueva relación entre España y Cataluña. A continuación hacemos nuestra propuesta explícita: para avanzar en una nueva resolución sobre la cuestión catalana nos hace falta, como sociedad compleja y plural, reconstruir una nueva relación y fundar un nuevo pacto político a partir de un consenso social y cultural de carácter prepolítico (es decir emocional, moral axiológico e ideológico) que sirva de base al pacto político, tanto entre los ciudadanos de Cataluña como entre éstos y los ciudadanos del conjunto de España. En la perspectiva de una Europa fuerte, unida, coherente y estable en la que las asimetrías federales no deben impedir avanzar en una unidad cada vez mayor, también podemos pensar una España capaz de integrar en lo común lo que es diferente. La solidaridad y la igualdad entre todos los ciudadanos españoles deben incluir el reconocimiento de lo diferencial, de la España plural y diversa a partir de la unión que se expresa por medio del pacto federal. El reconocimiento de la singularidad no se logra sólo y necesariamente por la bilateralidad en las relaciones, que es tan sólo una fórmula participen todos los españoles. Este pacto será posible si entre todos alcanzamos un discurso integrador. Es nuestra propuesta. posible entre otras. Proponemos pues un nuevo pacto político entre los ciudadanos, que, llegado el día, pueda ser sometido a un referéndum de revisión constitucional en el que

Via the intra-industry trade Cournot model in heterogeneous goods, the study deals with the strategies of how to select partner countries of free trade agreement on basis of social welfare criteria of a country. Thus, it gets the following results: Firstly, in a two-side FTA lowers tariffs on imports from any-member states. The FTA established on the similar market size of states. To establish a one-step global FTA is easier than other ways. Finally, as for allied strategies of the FTA, the first priority big country wants to ally itself with is a medium-sized country, the second one of which is a small country. Nevertheless, it is likely that big country will never have allies; the top priority a medium-sized country wants to ally itself with is a big country; a small country is willing to ally itself to any country.

Within the extensive literature on international regionalism, the more limited academic work done on regional financial organizations (RFOs) tends to assume that, by pooling resources to address such common international economic issues as development funding and financial crises, RFOs contribute to economic stability in their parts of the global landscape. Although South America has led the pack in creating such RFOs, their effectiveness is limited by the asymmetry in economic heft of the continent’s governments. Rather than weighing the significance of financial regionalism in South America from the point of view of the majority, we assess whether and how this phenomenon has contributed to Brazil’s politico-economic rise to near-major-power standing on the world stage in the twenty-first century. Drawing on extensive interviews with Brazilian officials conducted in March 2013, we analyze three instances of South America’s international public finance: development lending, crisis lending, and payment systems. Our findings suggest that self-generated unilateral and bilateral financial initiatives have brought Brasilia far more significant economic and political results than have RFOs, whose various incarnations have yielded the continental giant few economic and only minor political gains. RESUMEN: Dentro de la extensa literatura sobre economia politica y regionalismo internacional, encontramos una serie de trabajos mas especializados que se centran en las organizaciones financieras regionales (OFRs). Estos trabajos tienden a asumir que las OFRs contribuyen a la estabilidad economica en sus zonas respectivas, dando por sentado que pueden poner en un fondo comun los recursos de sus miembros para afrontar desafios economicos tales como el financiamiento para el desarrollo y crisis financieras. Sin embargo, por lo general la distribucion del poder entre los miembros de tales instituciones no es simetrica, pues la mayoria de las regiones cuentan con un gigante que persigue intereses economicos y politicos que se diferencian de los de sus vecinos mas debiles. A pesar de que America del Sur ha sido pionera en la creacion de OFRs, la asimetria en el poder economico de los estados miembros limita las capacidades efectivas de tales organizaciones. Por lo que en lugar de evaluar el significado del regionalismo financiero en America del Sur desde el punto de vista de la mayoria de sus gobiernos, nuestro objetivo es destacar en que medida las OFRs han contribuido a la emergencia economica y politica de Brasil como poder imponente en la escena global del siglo XXI. Con base en numerosas entrevistas con oficiales brasilenos, llevadas a cabo en el mes de marzo de 2013, analizamos tres aspectos de las finanzas publicas a nivel internacional en America del Sur: prestamos para el desarrollo, prestamos para las crisis, y sistemas de pago. Nuestros hallazgos indican que las iniciativas financieras—unilaterales y bilaterales—generadas por Brasilia le han aportado resultados economicos y politicos significativos, mientras que las ventajas economicas y politicas aportadas por las OFRs han sido muy escazas.

Donald Trump ha orientado su política exterior hacia dos objetivos económicos principales en materia de comercio exterior. El primero consiste en luchar por un fair trade que reequilibre la relación comercial de Estados Unidos con sus socios comerciales, a través de una lógica que privilegie a los intereses estadounidenses por encima de la búsqueda de intereses comunes. En virtud del segundo objetivo se busca frenar la des-localización de actividades productivas de Estados Unidos para impulsar la creación de nuevos empleos y estimular el crecimiento de la economía interna. Estos dos objetivos de la política exterior de Trump han sacudido profundamente los pilares más fundamentales del derecho del comercio internacional: un conjunto normativo, construido después de la Segunda Guerra Mundial para dar sustento jurídico a las relaciones económicas del nuevo orden internacional liberal. En primer lugar, el neoproteccionismo de la política exterior de Trump constituye una contestación frontal del libre comercio como paradigma dominante del derecho del comercio internacional. En segundo lugar, el confirmado bilateralismo de dicha política es el exacto opuesto del multilateralismo, promovido por las normas e instituciones de la regulación jurídica del comercio internacional. Tanto el neoproteccionismo como el bilateralismo manifiestan la existencia de una crisis más profunda de la cooperación entre Estados en el orden internacional liberal de la posguerra.

The chapter examines challenges to the position of the British in Argentina soon after 1900 led by US and German firms. By 1913, the latter dominated several major new areas of trade, leaving the British increasingly confined to older sectors led by textiles and railways. The 1920s appeared another period of high prosperity although the British were again undermined by US competition. Discussion leads into “bilateralism” during the 1930s through the Roca-Runciman treaty granting the British preferential shares of the Argentine market. The chapter concludes with World War II, a period in which Britain imported massive quantities of Argentine meat on a basis of deferred payment.

Few areas of law seem to excite as much controversy nowadays as the law of foreign investment. It is a fast-growing sector in which elements and ideas in the spheres of law, economics, political science, international relations and other related fields – increasingly environmental rights and human rights too – interact. It is also a sector in which approaches to the many existing problems often seem to be at once appropriate and contradictory. Furthermore, it is a sector subject to the growing scrutiny of governments, politicians, the media and citizens, in which a paradigm shift is currently taking place: increasingly, the promotion of investment and the protection of investors as the main – in some cases only – goal has to be balanced with the necessary recognition of the right of the state to promote and implement some public policies and interests. Globalisation is an increasingly negative concept for many people in western countries, as is free trade, and this has a direct and growing impact on the approach of some national governments to foreign direct investment (FDI). The traditionally rather innocuous area of investment law is nowadays under pressure, not only in relation to inwards FDI but also as regards to outwards FDI. How ironic then that it appears that those developed countries that have supported free trade and free movement of investment since the restrictive 1970s, during which anti-FDI feelings ran high, are now leading a ‘backlash against FDI and trigger[ing] a roll-back of investor protection and liberalization.’ The amount of FDI worldwide has increased, while at the same time, its patterns are changing and many well-established paradigms of all kinds are starting to collapse. Developing countries and emerging economies are now investing heavily in developed countries, and some of the latter's major companies and areas of economic activity are now controlled by foreigners. The distinction between developed exporting capital countries and developing importing capital countries has been blurred. This fact, among others, has a direct impact on the assessment of free trade and free flow of FDI in many countries, especially developed ones. The FDI global regime is based on bilateralism and indicates the changing shape of the economy and of international relations, with the appearance of new actors of all kinds. Some developed countries are starting to feel increasing disquiet about the FDI regime that they have helped construct over the decades.

The six monarchies nestled on the Arabian Peninsula – Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) – joined together to create the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) in early 1981 with the promise for close trade relationships that would bind conservative rulers and their societies together. While the priority was security, the founding fathers camouflaged their goals behind economic integration that, ironically, failed to eliminate internal crises. Nevertheless, and despite the emergency that enveloped Qatar in 2017, a new generation of Khalijis (Arab Gulf citizens) grew into full interdependence, as greater intimacy among GCC states led to the adoption of mutually beneficial policies. Still, GCC states confronted two sets of economic integration challenges: bilateral free trade agreements favoured by Bahrain and Oman, and multilateral commitments envisaged by Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Kuwait and the UAE. While the majority favoured coordinated trade activities as a regional organization, multilateral free trade agreements (FTAs) with other economic entities produced a mixed record. The chapter addresses the GCC states’ economic regional integration challenges and member states’ putative benefits that arose through trade agreements. It also focuses on the two odd cases of bilateral FTAs between the USA and, respectively, Bahrain and Oman, to determine whether these were attempts to bypass the GCC precisely to strengthen bilateralism at the expense of multilateralism. It closes with assessments of recently approved FTAs with several other countries, to decipher whether multilateral agreements might alleviate the GCC states’ plans to ease future economic woes.

International law is finally overcoming the legal as well as moral deficiencies of bilateralism and maturing into a much more socially conscious legal order. Thus, a rising awareness of the common interests of the international community, a community that comprises not only States, but in the last instance all human beings, has begun to change the nature of international law profoundly. B. Simma The emergence of different concepts of common interest in international law has sparked an increasing interest in the use of this concept among international lawyers, both inside and outside of academia. International law has always been a balancing act. It continuously reconciles the national interests of different States with the shared interests that those States have identified at the international level, for example in international Treaties. However, it is not clear how, legally speaking, the new dimension of common interests, or interests of the international community as a whole, fits into this existing balance. This is especially true in the context of the international judicial system, which lacks the ‘constitutional world court’ that may seem necessary to enforce common interests at the international level. The proliferation of international law has created an international judiciary that consists of different courts each living on their separate island and focusing on the values that are being enforced by their island's regime. In the present study, the practice of various international courts and tribunals will be analysed to identify whether and how these bodies reconcile the existence of common interests of the global community with the rules of their specific regime. At the same time, the study will examine how the different judicial bodies balance their Treaty regime with the national interests of the litigating States. A similar tension exists, and a parallel can be drawn, between the consideration of domestic national interests and that of common interests by international dispute settlement bodies: first, because both the global common interest and the national interest may conflict with interests explicitly protected in an international Treaty regime; and secondly, because the national interests defended by individual States before the international judicial bodies oft en overlap with interests shared by the international community.

To what extent do firms use trust, law, and third-parties to ensure fulfillment of agreements to transact? How do they combine these mechanisms to form transactional governance structures? How do answers to these questions vary across countries? Generating the relevant data requires constructing a survey question answerable by any firm, anywhere. The question is administered in six South American countries. Applied to the resultant data, latent class analysis (LCA) estimates classes that correspond to the transactional governance structures that firms employ to support implementation of agreements. Without imposing an a priori model, LCA discovers meaningful governance structures. Bilateralism appears in all governance structures. Law is never used alone. Bilateralism and formal institutions are sometimes complements, never substitutes. Within-country regional variation in the use of bilateralism and law exceeds cross-country variation. LCA provides the posterior probabilities that each firm uses each governance structure, facilitating testing hypotheses consequent on Williamson's discriminating-alignment agenda.

Switzerland is a non-member state without membership aspirations. In fact, less than one in five Swiss have been in favour of EU membership in recent years. Switzerland’s stake in the future of the European project is thus generally limited to managing and developing “bilateralism” – its unique relationship with the EU. At the same time, the politics of EU-Swiss relations are typical of the difficulties of non-members (and the exiting UK) in finding a viable relationship with the EU within the constraints of domestic Euroscepticism and international economic interdependence.

Brazil-European Union relations punch below their weight. Cooperation takes place at three levels: relations with European Union (EU) member states, Brazil`s partnership with Brussels, and EU-MERCOSUR negotiations. This multilevel governance contrasts with poor results: there is no free trade agreement, development cooperation became irrelevant, and international positions rarely converge. The article explores the reasons for the underperformance by comparing foreign policy shifts in Brazil and the EU, and analyzing multilevel governance in selected sectors of cooperation. It is based on four assumptions: multilevel relations are uncoordinated, idealist inter-regionalism doesn’t work, and crisis-driven, liberal realist foreign policies in Brazil and the EU facilitate bilateralism.

South America relations with Southeast Asian countries have flourished during the last decade. This dynamism was fueled by the economic trade complementarities and the increasing demand for Asian economies of primary products and its manufactures. Our aim in this paper is to identify and analyze the latest developments of interregional initiatives between Southeast Asia and South America, considering also the contributions of bilateral and multilateral policies in enhancing the interregional links. As relações da América do Sul com os países do Sudeste Asiático floresceu durante a passada década. Este dinamismo foi alimentado pelas complementaridades comerciais econômicas, e a demanda crescente das economias asiáticas de produtos primários. Nosso objetivo neste artigo é identificar e analisar os últimos desenvolvimentos de iniciativas inter-regionais entre o Sudeste Asiático e América do Sul, considerando-se, portanto, as contribuições de políticas bilaterais e multilaterais em melhorar as ligações inter-regionais. Fil: Rubiolo, María Florencia. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Córdoba. Centro de Investigaciones y Estudios sobre Cultura y Sociedad. Universidad Nacional de Córdoba. Centro de Investigaciones y Estudios sobre Cultura y Sociedad; Argentina

The second chapter introduces a new analytical framework for the study of the EU’s foreign policy in an emerging multipolar world. The framework draws attention to three different levels of EU foreign policy: bilateralism, multilateralism and trilateralism. Moreover, it draws on the concepts of EU foreign policy strategy, EU foreign policy instruments and policy responses by the EU’s partners. The EU’s foreign policy strategy is aimed at establishing a Comprehensive Strategic Partnership. In order to reach a CSP, EU foreign policy relies on the instrument of engagement. The analytical framework distinguishes between two different types of engagement: transformative and reciprocal engagement. The responses of the EU’s strategic partners are analysed in relation to the choice of both policy instruments.

Following the United States withdrawal from the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) in 2017, the remaining states agreed to suspend a number of provisions and conclude the agreement between themselves. The new agreement was renamed the Compressive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP) and was signed in March 2018. One of the most controversial aspects of the agreement is the investor-state dispute settlement mechanism (ISDS), which allows investors to bring arbitration claims against contracting states. At the time the agreement was signed, New Zealand agreed to five bilateral ‘side- letters’ with certain member states agreeing to limit the application of the ISDS clause. This paper explores New Zealand’s shift from a bilateral approach to international investment agreements to a multilateral approach, then back to a form of bilateralism within the multilateral CPTPP. The side letters can be characterised as subsequent agreements which modify a multilateral agreement between some of the parties, under art 41 of the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties. While this paper concludes that the mechanism is legally valid, the practical effectiveness is undermined by New Zealand’s overlapping previous agreements, the possibility of treaty shopping and the prospects of further countries acceding to the CPTPP.

The paper contends that bicameral systems, irrespective of their differences in composition and powers, are unfit to represent territorial interests in the national decisionmaking process, except in some residual cases. What subnational entities seek is participation rather than representation. This is why alternative, executive-based institutions in which also the national government is present are mushrooming and second chambers are ineffective as territorial bodies. Furthermore, there is a clear trend to move from bicameralism to bilateralism, meaning that instead of taking advantage of ineffective multilateral institutions, strong subnational units try to channel their claims through bilateral instruments. Overall, the unresolved dilemma of subnational representation has little to do with the architecture of second chambers and rather lays in the tension between individual and collective representation.

The proliferation of RTAs is a central feature of the world trade policy environment in the last 20 years. This paper provides an empirical study of the extent to which the formation of RTAs has changed the distribution of world goods trade among trading partners. To do this, it constructs a new measure, an index which measures the extent of bilateral trade between pairs of countries in each year. On average for the world economy this measure does not increase over the sample period 1981 to 2016. To study the impact of RTAs on the pattern of bilateralism in detail, we use a fixed effects regression model of countries for a panel dataset for countries in the Asia Pacific region. The evidence that the proliferation of RTAs has changed the country distribution of world of trade is very weak.

The Trudeau government currently confronts a complex bundle of challenges as it seeks to follow through on an ambitious and activist international environmental policy agenda. The first is how Canada can pursue its objectives given an unpredictable and environmentally unfriendly neighbour to the south. The Trump Effect throws into stark relief Canada’s continuing struggle to balance bilateralism and multilateralism in its foreign environmental policy, yet the current situation is also unique in terms of its severity. This first and fundamental challenge is interwoven with Canada’s long-standing internal debate about the appropriate balance between economic pragmatism and environmental ideals in its foreign policy, particularly as the new US administration threatens to upend existing trade and economic relationships. Canada must also decide where to look to find alternative strategic partners for its multilateral environmental efforts. While a series of overtures have been made to China, particularly in terms of fostering alternative energy markets, Latin America—via Mexico—offers opportunities as well. This chapter explores each of these dynamics and also shows the ways in which they are interlinked. It also portrays a strategic and committed Trudeau government which has responded, thus far, quite nimbly to changing conditions on this file.

Large trade powers or hubs such as the European Union (EU) are keen to highlight the ‘positive spill-over effects’ a free trade agreement (FTA) with them could offer for developing partners’ endeavors to foster South-South integration. Drawing on the concepts of Hub-and-spokes bilateralism and the ‘systemic implications’ of overlapping FTAs, this chapter, in contrast, explores to what extent agreements with the ‘hub’ and their accompanying rules of origin systems affect formulation, negotiation and implementation of FTAs among the ‘spokes’. The bumpy track record of the Agadir Agreement and, in particular, the Greater Arab Free Trade Area (GAFTA) suggest that, despite the EU’s offer to allow for diagonal cumulation of origin, the agreements with the EU and the US foster fragmentation rather than promoting integration among Arab countries. As a consequence, they also tend to further constrain the limited potential of GAFTA and the Agadir Agreement to effectively complement integration with the hubs.

Recent decades have witnessed the growing malaise of multilateralism within international economic governance and an inclination for bilateralism and tailor-made solutions. And yet procedural multilateralism does exist in international investment law. The chapter assesses the Mauritius Convention and a similar initiative, the OECD’s Multilateral Convention to Implement Tax Treaty Related Measures to Prevent Base Erosion and Profit Shifting (BEPS), in order to draw inspiration for the EU’s multilateral investment court. The emphasis is on recent developments, in light of the EU’s 2017 public consultation on a multilateral reform of investment dispute resolution. It argues that while the UNCITRAL and OECD examples of ‘retroactively’ reforming thousands of existing treaties offer useful guidance, the establishment of a multilateral investment court would require two instruments —a convention regulating the relationship between IIAs and the court and a stand-alone convention (the statute) on the multilateral investment court —and only the first of these instruments can draw on the UNCITRAL and OECD precedents.

By developing international law, international courts - ‘intermediate Global Public Goods (GPG)’- can also contribute to the protection and promotion of final GPG. In international legal discourse, the term is often linked but not limited to the idea of erga omnes norms. The ICJ, in particular, is capable of promoting GPG by adjudicating inter-State claims. However, one of the main obstacles faced by the World Court relates to the existing tension between the bilateral nature of its own proceedings and the multilateral nature of the conflicting substantive law. Whereas the rules of substantive law that protect community interests are considered as GPG, those guiding international adjudication are of a procedural nature. Considering that procedure may guide and shape the application of substantive law, it will be argued that it should itself be interpreted and developed in a manner to ensure community interests. This article argues that using its power to ‘frame rules for carrying out its functions’, independently from States’ consent, the Court should assume expanded procedural powers in order to ensure the effective application of substantive law whenever GPG are at issue. Most procedural rules can be adjusted and tailored for multiparty aspects with the aim of protecting community interests and enhancing the international court’s legitimacy. It is up to the Court to find the balance between States’ rights and commonly aspired goals, acknowledging the relation between the emergence of soft international law-making (procedure) and its role of addressing the provision of GPG (substance).

In Chap. 5, Casas and Serrano propose that China’s Free Trade Agreements (FTA) are part of a long-term multilateral approach with the potential to be included in the institutional infrastructure of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). By developing a BRI Initiatives Dynamic Evaluation Framework, they emphasize that initiatives under the BRI will be subject to decision and evaluation mechanisms that transcend China proper. This means that FTAs are dynamic rather than static. The key element in this iteration is the FTA upgrade, which includes trade impact analyses, business agent surveys, utilization rates, and signaling effects. The Sino–Swiss FTA is evaluated as part of this long-term strategy of upgrading bilateral relationships into a comprehensive system that relies on institutional outsourcing of the upward kind from nations with deep institution-building experience.

The essays collected in this volume critically address some of the main issues concerning the relations of the EU with non-EU countries and international organisations in the area of private international law, as well as the impact of these ...

This article analyses the relationship between Britain, the United States, and Bolivia in the context of the tin nexus after the Second World War. While the connection between Britain and Bolivia was long-standing - Bolivian tin had been shipped to Britain since the nineteenth century - it extended far beyond simple bilateralism. Such was the intricate web of connections in the global tin industry that any rupture in the Anglo-Bolivian relationship would have fundamental ramifications on the equilibrium of the industry, and, in turn, Britain's predominant position within it. The United States had overtly challenged Britain's dominance during the Second World War by constructing a smelter to be supplied by Bolivian ores. Despite the financial exigencies of the post-war period, the profound upheavals in the domestic Bolivian tin industry, and the contentious, destabilising tin-procurement policy pursued by the United States, Britain was determined to confront this threat. By actively seeking to pres...

‘Multiple bilateralism’ stresses the manner in which bilateral relations between the Member States operate in function of the multilateral EU negotiation process. In order to explore how multiple bilateralism works, a network analysis has been made of the Dutch coalition-building effort during the negotiation on the Multiannual Financial Framework 2014–2020. It examines the interaction between the various actors involved in this process, such as the ministries in The Hague, the EU institutions in Brussels, the governments of other Member States and the embassies abroad. Specific attention is given to this last type of actor. Contrary to what is often assumed, bilateral embassies’ contribution to the negotiation process is relatively modest. Only a few embassies, namely those in the largest EU Member States, were able to play a more important role and direct contact with Member States’ capitals was considered to be the predominant channel for success.

This article investigates the notion of ‘lateralisms’ and how various modes of engagement (namely bilateralism, regionalism and multilateralism) relate to one another. It begins with a careful analysis of the evolution of ‘lateralisms’ and their (in)compatibility at the global level, building on the existing literature from multiple research disciplines. The second part of this article focuses specifically on the European Union's (EU's) foreign policy approach. The author puts forward two main hypotheses. First, the EU has performed a rebalancing act between bilateralism and regionalism/multilateralism over the last decade in favour of the former, notably through the deepening of its so-called ‘strategic partnerships’. Second, this enhanced bilateralism is not necessarily compatible with other ‘lateralisms’, as it can at times undermine regional integration processes or the building of an effective multilateral order. The author eventually formulates some recommendations to ensure that bilateral partnersh...

A recent study in the area of international trade networks found that global free trade (GFT) is pairwise stable. This finding has led to the conclusion that bilateralism is a building block for GFT. The current article uses an alternative stability concept to show that international networks other than GFT are the only stable networks when governments are politically biased. The main implication of this finding is that the use of bilateral agreements as a political tool to reach GFT can in fact lead to inefficient stable networks.

This article has two objectives. The first is to highlight a turn towards multilateral collaboration in the immigration sector and the resulting focus on pan-Canadian policy objectives and initiatives. This account is set against the current literature, which argues a bilateral approach to intergovernmental relations in the sector has resulted in asymmetrical policies and programs. The second objective is to demonstrate the value of explicitly focusing on the nature of intergovernmental relations as unilateral, bilateral or multilateral. Applying this lens, the article draws out the drivers and complexity of the turn towards multilateral collaboration in the immigration sector, arguing it is motivated by an increased provincial engagement in economic immigration and also by the federal government's desire to reassert its own role in response.

What are the Chinese views on Asian multilateralism? To answer this question, this article uses a fresh perspective—social evolution—to look at China’s engagement with ASEAN. It aims to identify the mechanisms of change that trigger the major shifts in the bilateral relationship between China and ASEAN. It examines the nature of these mechanisms of change, traces their origins and assesses their impact. The article argues in favour of adopting a social evolutionary approach to study the China–ASEAN relationship along with the existing theoretical approaches of realism, liberalism and constructivism. Hopefully the article helps to shed some light on the puzzling dilemma of multilateralism versus bilateralism that China faces in dealing with ASEAN over trade and investments, political balancing and territorial disputes.

On 1 March 2005, a coalition of progressive political parties Frente Amplio assumed executive power after winning the 2004 presidential election, electoral and political event unprecedented in Uruguay. The formation of the first leftist government in this country marked changes in its foreign policy and a new model of international integration. Next, we turn first to the Uruguayan foreign policy during the progressive governments from a general characterization of this and the international dimension in the program frenteamplista government. We will continue with a brief overview of the foreign policy of José Mujica and his relationship with Brazil Dilma Rousseff, finally, in the third paragraph, the global, regional and bilateral dimension of current cooperation agendas, El 1° de marzo de 2005, la coalición de partidos políticos progresistas Frente Amplio asumió el Poder Ejecutivo luego de haber ganado las elecciones presidenciales de 2004, acontecimiento electoral y político sin precedentes en Uruguay. La conformación del primer gobierno de izquierda en este país supuso cambios en su política exterior y un nuevo modelo de inserción internacional. A continuación, analizaremos en primer lugar la política exterior uruguaya durante los gobiernos progresistas a partir de una caracterización general de esta y de la dimensión internacional en el programa de gobierno frenteamplista. Seguiremos con una breve reseña de la política exterior de José Mujica y de su relacionamiento con el Brasil de Dilma Rousseff, para finalizar, en un tercer apartado, con la dimensión global, regional y bilateral de las actuales agendas de cooperación, Em 1° de março de 2005, a coalizão de partidos políticos progressistas Frente Amplio assumiu o Poder Executivo depois de ter ganhado as eleições presidenciais de 2004, acontecimento eleitoral e político sem precedentes no Uruguai. A conformação do primeiro governo de esquerda neste país levou à mudanças em sua política externa e um novo modelo de inserção internacional. A seguir, vamos analisar primeiramente a política externa uruguaia durante os governos progressistas a partir de uma caracterização geral desta e da dimensão internacional no programa de governo frenteamplista. Seguiremos com uma breve análise da política externa de José Mujica e de seu relacionamento com o Brasil de Dilma Rousseff, para finalizar, em uma terceira seção, com a dimensão global, regional e bilateral das atuais agendas de cooperação.

The aim of the article is to evaluate the contribution of bilateralism to global anti-doping policy. The article begins with an assessment of contemporary challenges facing the World Anti-Doping Agency in attempting to strengthen compliance with the World Anti-Doping Code and notes the weaknesses in compliance. The analytical framework for the article is derived from regime theory, neo-institutionalism and the concept of isomorphism. This is followed by a discussion of the nature of the anti-doping global policy regime and the part that bilateralism might play in the various stages of regime development. The development of bilateral collaboration is traced, and the leading role played by Norway in its development is examined. The central section of the article utilises neo-institutionalist theory and the concept of isomorphism to explore the case of Norway’s bilateral links with China and identifies the outputs of the collaboration and also the motives of both partners. The article concludes with an analy...

Beginning in early 2013, US analysts detected a shift in Uzbekistan’s foreign policy—a move to increasingly rely on bilateralism as the basis for the state’s international relations. President Islam Karimov’s rejection of Russia’s self-proclaimed role of hegemon in Central Asia has likely contributed to this newfound policy approach that places Tashkent in a position to increase social and economic ties with the region’s emerging powerhouse—China. Although Uzbekistan has expressed consistent interest in establishing closer ties with the US, the withdrawal of US forces from the region diminishes the ability of the US to remain a plausible partner. This new approach to foreign relations will not fully prevent Uzbekistan from participating in the region’s multilateral organizations, but rather it is seen as an attempt to create some spacing between Tashkent and Moscow. This paper argues that active multistate cooperation between Uzbekistan, its Central Asian neighbors, and the region’s superpowers—Russia, China, and the United States—is necessary for the containment of extremism in Afghanistan following the International Security Assistnace Force drawdown in 2016. However, if Uzbekistan abandons multilateralism to the degree that neighboring Turkmenistan has and relies on the neorealist tenet of self-help in addressing political and security threats, the state will inevitably expose itself to Russian meddling. Uzbek cooperation with Vladimir Putin in the areas of economic development and security will continue but will be approached very cautiously due to the alarm resulting from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

What is the role of intergovernmental institutions and transnational policy networks in the management of North American natural resources? The articles presented in this special volume provide some answers to this question and contribute to an ongoing discussion about bilateral and trilateral resource management. This concluding article pulls together the major themes, questions, answers, and avenues for further research presented in the special volume. There is broad consensus that post-bureaucratic interactive agencies are developing in bi- and trilateral resource management but notable policy outcomes are lagging. Climate change is hypothesized to be a test of Northern American governance because already we see this formidable issue further cementing fragmented bilateralism.

The rise of the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) is gradually transforming the international system from a unipolar world toward multipolarity. China’s ascent not only challenges US domination, but also intensifies the institutionalization of security in the Asia Pacific. On the basis of institutional balancing theory, I argue that (i) China’s rise has led to a competition among different regional orders, that is, the US-led bilateralism versus ASEAN-centered and China-supported multilateralism. However, conflicts or wars are not inevitable since the contested regional orders can coexist in the Asia Pacific. (ii) The deepening economic interdependence has encouraged regional powers, including the United States, China and ASEAN, to rely on different institutional balancing strategies to pursue security after the Cold War.

The EU is a world economic power and a major trading partner for most countries. All the time, this region has been interested and has acted towards a free and fair trade. The decrease and even the elimination of tariff and non-tariff barriers in the world trade are among the main objectives of the EU strategy for international trade. At the moment, the elusive outcome of the WTO Doha Round has led to the proliferation of bilateral trade agreements worldwide. Although the EU remains committed to further development of the multilateral trading system, however, the EU still has appealed also to the development of bilateral trade relations. The aim of this paper is to illustrate the current bilateral dimension of the common commercial policy of the EU. In conclusion, to describe this bilateral approach of the EU we are using one word, namely “diversity”.

This chapter provides an overview of the interplay between bilateralism and region-building across time and in the shadow of power asymmetries in the area. It shows that the centrality of bilateralism in the European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP), as well as the uneven impact of the European Union (EU) on neighbouring countries. The chapter analyses regional initiatives in the neighbourhood and shows how region-building developed in different ways, with the Mediterranean being an early target and the eastern neighbourhood a latecomer. The main tenets of the ENP display a mix of bilateralism, multilateralism and region-building. The literature on bilateralism, multilateralism and region-building is broad, especially related to the EU. Multilateralism and region-building are often associated with the policies of the EU, which is the most fully-fledged example of the construction of a prosperous region. Combining bilateralism and region-building, has been a constant challenge in EU external relations.