The development of international trade relations at the present stage: theoretical aspect

Introduction: the article analyzes the regulation of international trade relations at the present stage of their development. It identifies the features of this regulation, studies the current trends, and determines the course of development to improve the international economic legislation. The emergence of mega-regional trade agreements (for example, in the framework of the Trans-Pacific Partnership) was a response to the protracted stagnation of the multilateral trade regulation system within the World Trade Organization and gave a new impetus to research in the field of international integration processes. The article assesses the prospects of the convergence of regionalism and global integration. Purpose: the article attempts to develop a modern concept of international and regional trade relations. Methods: historical-legal, logical-legal, and system-structural methods, the method of interbranch legal research, the method of system analysis. Discussion: regional economic integration is a relatively new phenomenon in the global economy. The development of integration processes has been widely discussed in fundamental monographic studies. The emergence of regional agreements in a slightly different format revitalized discussions on the interaction of multilateral regulation at the regional and global levels and on the impact of regional trade agreements on the development of the world economy. The authors of the article focus on the features of regional economic integration which led to the emergence of a new format of regional agreements, and consider the prospects of convergence of regionalism and global integration in the new environment. Conclusions: the authors state that the potential that regional agreements possess in terms of internationalization of the regional practice of international economic relations openness is associated with a large number of participants, transparency and clarity in regulation of relations and a high degree of obligatoriness of the agreed measures. The transfer of regional agreements to the international level can be expected in various areas, for example, in the provision of services, investment, technical regulation of international economic relations.