Multilateralism and Regionalism Versus Bilateralism: The Position of Brazil in the Mercosul and in the WTO.

The position of Brazil is oriented above all towards regionalism and multilateralism. Regionalism is foreseen in Art. XXIV of the 1994 General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT); and multilateralism is foreseen in the World Trade Organization. The emerging Mercosul is a type of regional agreement with the liberalisation of commerce. Since 2001, however, there has been a proliferation of bilateral agreements in North and Central America. The question is whether these bilateral agreements, which form free trade zones, will provoke a fragmentation of the World Trade Organization, constituting a weakness in the multilateral agreements foreseen by this organization, as well as in regionalism, such as the Mercosul, envisaged by Brazil. This paper will investigate the consequences of these phenomena for Brazil and the different reactions to such in the Brazilian doctrine. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]