1.3 Development of the Law of International Trade

1. The lex mercatoria — the medieval merchants' law (the customs-and-fairs; the merchants' courts; the cosmopolitan private law). 2. The national absorption — the mercantilist era's nationalisation (the trade inside the states' laws). 3. The nineteenth-century liberalisation — the bilateral treaties (the friendship-commerce- navigation pacts); the gold standard's order. 4. The twentieth century's swings — the protectionist collapse (the 1930s); the post-war reconstruction: the GATT 1947 (the tariffs' round-by-round reduction); the ITO's failure (the Havana Charter's stillbirth). 5. The WTO era — the 1995 establishment (the Uruguay Round's breadth: the goods-services- IP); the Doha's travails (the round's stall); the regionalism's rise (the FTAs' proliferation — the WTO-plus faces). 6. The private law's unification — the parallel track: the CISG, the Incoterms, the UCP, the arbitration's rise (the merchant's law reborn — the lex mercatoria's revival).