9.2 Regional Trade Organizations

9.2.1 SAPTA (SAARC Preferential Trading Arrangement) The SAARC family's trade instrument (1993, in force 1995): the SAARC members' PREFERENTIAL trading arrangement — the tariff preferences exchanged product-by-product (the positive-list approach; the non-reciprocity-and-special-treatment faces for the LDC members); the institutional frame (the SAARC secretariat; the committees). The successor: SAFTA (the South Asian Free Trade Area Agreement, 2004, in force 2006) — the free trade area's architecture: the tariff reduction schedules (the LDC members' longer-and-deeper concessions received); the sensitive lists' exclusions; the rules of origin's discipline; the trade facilitation faces. The honest assessment: the South Asian integration's promise vs. the practice's gaps (the sensitive lists' breadth, the non-tariff barriers' persistence, the connectivity's deficit) — the region's trade integration's continuing story. 9.2.2 Role of the GATT 1994 in the Field of International Trade The GATT 1994 (the Uruguay Round's consolidated text of the 1947 GATT's legacy — incorporated into the WTO package): the GOODS trade's constitution — the MFN-and-national-treatment pillars; the tariff schedules' binding; the antidumping-and-countervailing-safeguard remedies; the agriculture-and-textiles' now-covered sectors; the exceptions-and-waivers' frame. Its role: the goods' rules baseline for the entire multilateral system (the WTO's oldest-and-core layer). 9.2.3 International Trade with Special Reference to Least Developed and Land- Locked Countries The LDC faces: the S&D principle's LDC edge (the longer periods, the lower commitments); the preferential access programmes (the GSP; the…