The role of aid for trade and technical trade assistance in regional economic integration

Recent developments in world trade regulation increasingly exhibit a focus on mega-regional trade agreements and other processes of inter- and intra-regional economic integration. These dynamics span advanced, emerging, less developed countries and everything in between. Even where such agreements are ostensibly only being negotiated between developed regions – such as in the proposed Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) between the European Union and the United States of America – there are inevitably consequences for the developing world.