African integration : lessons from the EU, NAFTA, MERCOSUR, ASEAN and APEC

Abstract

The past two decades have witnessed a resurgence of regional economic integration groupings at the global level. Three distinctive trends are discernible, namely: North-North (NN) North-South (N-S), and South-South (S-S). The N-N cooperation is represented by the European Economic Community (EEC) established by the Treaty of Rome in 1957 and has since been transformed into a single market of the European Community in 1992. The creation of the European Union (EU) has played a key role in the resurgence of regionalization at global scale.