Globalization and the State: Trade Agreements, Inequality, the Environment, Financial Globalization, International Law and Vulnerabilities

The dream of economists after 1945 was a system of multilateral trade through the International Trade Organization (ITO) to reverse the protectionism of the Great Depression. Since then, a system of powerful preferential trade agreements has spread, and this system now attracts great major criticism from economists. There are significant restrictions on globalization and many issues surrounding it which must be addressed in the near future. Global poverty and inequality is an area of much debate, as is the relation of globalization to the choice of political regime in individual countries. International economic laws and codes and their consequences have also come under examination in recent years.