Introduction

Abstract

For a considerable part of modern history, the question of borders was mainly one of war and peace. Policies related to borders were characterized by the interplay of military defence and conquest. Only after World War II, and particularly in Europe, did national borders gain a unique degree of geographical stability. But at the same time processes were launched which prevented national borders from being exclusive matters of unconstrained national sovereignty, and instead made them also subject to political decisions beyond the nation states. The European Community and later on the European Union (EU) provide the most developed examples for these processes originating mainly from regional integration, but also from the deregulation of international trade and investment. Until the mid-1980s international policies on borders were mainly limited to addressing the economic functions of national borders. Within the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), nation states participating in the International Trade Organization (ITO) decided to which extent their national borders should serve as economic boundaries, and to what extent they should be permeable for foreign investment and trade. Thus, GATT and later the WTO provide a first contribution to a new phenomenon, the emergence of post-national borders.