The world economic order is in transition. Reform of the WTO’s multilateral trade system has proven difficult for over a decade now, leading an increasing number of states to promote their mutual trade relations through preferential trade agreements (PTAs). Jagdish Bhagwati’s famous “spaghetti bowl” metaphor has repeatedly been invoked to describe the numerous implications and difficulties which arise from this boost of regionalism, which has already led to more than 300 PTAs currently being in force worldwide. In addition, recent negotiations of future “mega-regionals”, such as the planned EU-US Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) and EU-Canada Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA), allegedly having considerable impact on national environmental, labour, health, and other standards, have added a controversial political dimension to the debate.

How are these complex developments to be assessed from a legal perspective? To approach this question, Prof. Dr. Peter-Tobias Stoll (Institute for International Law and European Law, Göttingen University), the Center for European Governance and Economic Development Research and the Göttingen Association for the Promotion of International Law, convened the „Göttingen Conference on Preferential Trade Agreements and World Economic Order“ from 6-8 March 2014. A group of highly distinguished scholars and practitioners in the field followed Prof. Stoll’s invitation to Göttingen’s Historic Church of the Paulines Conference Center to discuss the numerous legal and economic implications of PTAs in eight panels of what was at the same time the first conference of the International Law Association’s new Study Group on Preferential Trade Agreements.