New forces shape international trade

A distinctive characteristic of our time is the rapid increase in the number and types of international institutions. Relationships that span national boundaries take many forms, including the REd Cross, the Boy Scouts, rotary Clbs, the AFL-CIO and literally thousands of others.

Even if you limit your view to organizaitons with a political purpose, their growth and evolution since the end of Worl War II is astounding. some of these are traditional, sch as the 12-nation European Community, a supranational institution established to create a unified common market among its member nation-states.

But there is anew kind of international institutuion emerging. These new internatinal associatins do not build ont he nation-state; they by-pass the natin-state. Their purpose is to primote trade and commerce and to advance shared political, eocnomic and cultural agendas