ABSTRACT
One of the key factors driving the negotiation of many regional and bilateral free trade agreements today, particularly among advanced industrial countries, is the internationalization of production. Regional free trade agreements have become a permanent fixture of the world trading system. Policy convergence is being negotiated in the context of trade rather than policy specific agreements because it is the objective of such agreement, namely the expansion of trade, which legitimizes the sacrifice of a degree of national sovereignty in these policy areas. The global integration of production leads to many of the same pressures for expanding the range of policy areas covered by trade agreements. The reality is that a new tier has emerged in the policy-making structure of the world economy. The internationalization of production is creating the need for greater coordination or harmonization of many policies previously the exclusive province of national or subnational governments.
