1. In this book, we adopt a pragmatic definition of region as a “contiguous territorial area having sufficiently clear internal cohesion and definitive external boundaries”, which matches the characterization by the World Bank and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) of East Asia as comprising Northeast and Southeast Asia, but excluding the United States, any of the Latin American countries, Australia, New Zealand, and the Pacific Island states. See T.J. Pempel (2006) “Introduction: Emerging Webs of Regional Connectedness” In: T.J. Pempel, ed., Remapping East Asia: The Construction of a Region. Cornell University Press, Ithaca NY, pp. 4.
2. The World Trade Organization’s (WTO) own nomenclature also has obscured, rather than clarified, the importance of cross-regionalism by loosely using the term “Regional Trade Agreements (RTAs)” to cover all preferential trade deals within and beyond regions. To avoid such confusion, we make an explicit distinction between regional (RTAs) and cross-regional trade agreements (CRTAs). Whenever we refer to preferential trade agreements in general we use the neutral term FTA (or free trade agreement).
3. E. Mansfield and H. Milner (1999) “The New Wave of Regionalism”, International Organization 53, 3: 590–91.
4. The one exception is the United States–Israel FTA which preceded the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). However, Israel has always been a key strategic priority for the United States deserving special treatment, and in all other instances CRTAs for Europe and North America came after their main regional blocs were firmly in place.
5. In this way we offer an explanation of cross-regionalism that is distinct from the oft-noted motivations behind the selection of cross-regional partners: special security relations (US–Israel), former colonial ties (EU–South Africa), and natural resource diplomacy (Japan and Gulf states, in negotiation).