Armin Hohenadler

Today, the free trade agreement is the most common form of regional integration. For example, 84% of regional trade agreements notified to the World Trade Organization (WTO) are FTA agreements. This trend can be explained very easily. To sign such an agreement, it is not necessary to harmonize national legislation or tariffs, nor is the geographical proximity of the partners necessary, etc. At the same time, FTA agreements govern access to strategic markets. This means that they make it possible to integrate the economic sectors at the required level, while ensuring maximum respect for the sovereignty of these countries and making the best efforts. By free trade area (hereinafter referred to as `the Free Trade Agreement`), Article XXIV of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade 1944 is a group of two or more customs territories in which customs duties and other restrictive arrangements (with a few exceptions) are essentially eliminated in all trade between the areas constituting goods originating in those territories. A free trade agreement (FTA) or treaty is a multinational international agreement aimed at creating a free trade area between cooperating states. Free trade agreements, a form of trade pact, set the tariffs and tariffs imposed by countries on imports and exports in order to reduce or eliminate barriers to trade, thereby promoting international trade. [1] These agreements generally focus „on a chapter that provides for preferential tariff treatment,“ but they often contain „trade facilitation and regulatory clauses in areas such as investment, intellectual property, government procurement, technical standards, and sanitary and phytosanitary issues.“ [2] These agreements constitute an exception to the most-favoured-nation treatment established by the World Trade Organization, under which all WTO members treat each other in a uniform and non-discriminatory manner. Free trade agreements, which are free trade areas, are generally outside the scope of the multilateral trading system. However, WTO members must inform the secretariat when concluding new free trade agreements and, in principle, the texts of free trade agreements are subject to review by the Committee on Regional Trade Agreements. [11] Although a dispute that arises within free trade areas is not the subject of disputes before the WTO Dispute Settlement Body, „there is no guarantee that WTO panels will comply with it and refuse to exercise jurisdiction in a given case.“ [12] First, customs duties and other rules that are maintained in each of the signatory parties to a free trade area and that apply at the time of the establishment of such a free trade area must not be higher or more restrictive for trade with parties not party to such a free trade area than customs duties and other rules applicable in the same signatory parties before the creation of of the free trade area.

In other words, the creation of a free trade area for preferential treatment among its members is legitimate under WTO law, but parties to a free trade area cannot treat non-parties less favourably than before the establishment of the area. . . .