But it remains to be seen whether these country-to-country trade links will serve as building blocks or as substitutes for a wider, multilateral agreement.

ECONOMIST: Smaller steps

The Multilateral Agreement on Investment (MAI) sought to ensure that companies investing abroad would receive compensation if they were nationalised as well as equal treatment with domestic firms.

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The Protocol is a win-win outcome for the environment and economics: it is a multilateral environmental agreement that provides solutions to economics, and it is also an economic treaty that provides necessary protection for the environment.

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Finally, by transforming a bilateral agreement into a multilateral one, the Clinton Administration would effectively be giving three additional nations a veto over changes to the ABM Treaty .

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He said the US would seek to reach an agreement for the funds owed to the multilateral donors, which include the Inter-American Development Bank, the International Fund for Agricultural Development and the International Development Association.

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The conclusion of the WTO Agreement will improve market access and reinforce the multilateral trade system.

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Moreover, the fear of losing favourable treatment in a bilateral agreement can deter governments from talking tough in multilateral negotiations.

ECONOMIST: Trade agreements

Of course, the big difference is that this is a multilateral, a six-nation process, where the 1994 agreement was more of a bilateral deal between the U.S. and North Korea.

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Those who urge that a global World Trade Organization agreement is preferable to a series of bilateral and multilateral pacts ignore the WTO's very limited progress towards creating global free trade.

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