IB Geography 4.3.1 Political Factors That Affect Global Interactions Notes

Governments Write the Rules That Govern Which Goods and Which Workers Reach a Market

1. In September 2026, the World Trade Organization's Regional Trade Agreements Database listed more than 380 notified regional trade agreements in force.
2. These political controls on trade and on migration are studied only in the higher level extension, so a standard level student meets both flows elsewhere but never these instruments.
3. A multi-governmental organization, shortened to MGO, is a body of member governments whose powers come from a treaty and whose effect on movement runs through four levers.
   1. An MGO can remove the tariff that members charge each other on imports.
   2. It can set a single external tariff that every member charges on goods arriving from outside the group.
   3. It can harmonize the standards a product must meet before it may be sold.
   4. It can change who may work where, and on what terms.

Free Trade Area and Customs Union Are Two Different Depths of Integration

1. Free Trade Area
   1. Members abolish tariffs on goods traded between them while each keeps its own tariff on goods arriving from outside the group.
   2. Because those outside tariffs differ, every shipment has to prove where it was made, which is why rules of origin sit at the centre of every free trade agreement.
2. Customs Union
   1. Members abolish internal tariffs and adopt a common external tariff charged at the same rate wherever a good enters, so a good cleared anywhere in the union then circulates without a second charge.

Common Market and Single Market Add Factors and Then Rules

1. Common Market
   1. A customs union becomes a common market when it adds free movement of the factors of production, meaning capital and labour as well as goods.
2. Single Market
   1. A common market becomes a single market when it adds harmonized regulation, so a product authorized in one member state may be sold in all of them without meeting a second set of safety, labelling and testing rules.
   2. Those four levers are the steps that lead from separate tariff schedules to a single market, pulled in the order internal tariff, common external tariff, factor movement, then harmonized regulation.

Article 28 Requires Both Halves of the EU Customs Union, and the Council Sets the Tariff Rates by Regulation

1. Article 28(1) of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union states that the Union shall comprise a customs union covering all trade in goods, involving the prohibition between member states of customs duties on imports and exports and of all charges having equivalent effect, and the adoption of a common customs tariff in their relations with third countries.
2. Council Regulation (EEC) No 2658/87, adopted on 23 July 1987, established the Combined Nomenclature that classifies every traded good and that, with the rates of duty, constitutes the Common Customs Tariff applied on importation.
3. Article 26(2) defines the internal market, which is the treaty's name for the single market, as an area without internal frontiers in which the free movement of goods, persons, services and capital is ensured.
4. Article 45 secures freedom of movement for workers and abolishes discrimination based on nationality as regards employment, remuneration and other conditions of work.

USMCA Keeps Three External Tariffs, so Origin Has to Be Proved Product by Product

1. The United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement entered into force on 1 July 2020 in place of the North American Free Trade Agreement, with each of the three parties keeping its own tariff schedule for goods from outside the bloc.
2. That choice makes the agreement a free trade area rather than a customs union, so a good has to qualify as originating before it travels duty-free.
3. A vehicle earns duty-free treatment only by meeting a regional value content threshold of 75 percent, which the United States International Trade Commission's 2025 report on the automotive rules of origin applies to light vehicles and their core parts, meaning passenger vehicles and light trucks.
4. The same report records that manufacturers must buy at least 70 percent of their steel and aluminium from within the three parties.
5. A labour value content requirement obliges at least 40 percent of a passenger vehicle by value, and 45 percent for light and heavy trucks, to come from suppliers paying workers at least 16 US dollars an hour.
6. Article 34.7 gives the agreement an initial term of 16 years subject to a joint review on the sixth anniversary of entry into force, at which each party confirms in writing whether it wishes to extend.
7. The United States Trade Representative issued a statement on 1 July 2026 recording that the United States did not agree to renew the agreement in its current form, so the agreement is not renewed, though it stays in force while the parties work on the issues the statement names.

ASEAN Has Almost Finished Cutting Internal Tariffs While the AfCFTA Has Barely Started

1. The ASEAN Trade in Goods Agreement, shortened to ATIGA, was signed at Hua Hin in Thailand on 26 February 2009 and came into force on 17 May 2010, on the record published by the Malaysian government's free trade agreement portal.
2. ASEAN's own trade in goods pages state that tariffs on around 98.86 percent of products were fully eliminated under ATIGA as of 2025.
3. Each member still sets its own duty on goods arriving from outside the group, so ASEAN remains a free trade area.
4. On labour, ASEAN lists eight mutual recognition arrangements covering engineering, nursing, architecture, surveying, medical practitioners, dental practitioners, accountancy and tourism professionals, which recognize qualifications in named professions without creating any general right to move for work.
5. Timor-Leste was admitted as the eleventh member state at the 47th ASEAN Summit on 26 October 2025.

1. The African Continental Free Trade Area agreement opened for signature at Kigali on 21 March 2018 and entered into force on 30 May 2019, with 50 of the 54 states now signed having deposited instruments of ratification on the Trade Law Centre's count of 4 September 2026.
2. The African Union launched trading on 1 January 2021, though the Trade Law Centre records that trade under AfCFTA preferences did not begin that year, because tariff schedules were still being negotiated.
3. About ten state parties were trading under the Guided Trade Initiative, which ran from its launch at Accra on 7 October 2022 to its conclusion in April 2025.

A Free Trade Zone Is a Fenced Area Inside One State Where the Customs Rules Change

1. The Revised Kyoto Convention defines a free zone in Specific Annex D, Chapter 2 as a part of the territory of a contracting party where any goods introduced are generally regarded, as far as import duties and taxes are concerned, as being outside the customs territory.
2. The Standing Committee of the Fifth National People's Congress approved the Regulations on Special Economic Zones in Guangdong Province on 26 August 1980, creating zones at Shenzhen, Zhuhai and Shantou.
3. Article 13 of those regulations exempts capital goods imported for production inside a zone from import duties, with Article 14 setting enterprise income tax inside the zones at 15 percent.
4. India built its own version on the Special Economic Zones Act, 2005.
5. The fact sheet published by its Ministry of Commerce and Industry as on 31 March 2026 counts 418 formally approved zones, 368 notified and 277 operational.
6. That fact sheet puts exports from Indian special economic zones in 2025 to 2026 at 16.36 lakh crore rupees, which it converts to 185.28 billion US dollars, a rise of 11.79 percent on the previous year.

The Global Count of Zones Depends on Which Definition Is Used

1. UNCTAD reported nearly 5,400 special economic zones in 147 economies when it published the World Investment Report 2019, the edition devoted to zones, and recorded more than 500 further zones in the pipeline.
2. The World Customs Organization's Practical Guidance on Free Zones of December 2020 sets three other estimates beside it, citing the International Labour Organization on more than 3,500 export processing zones in 2014, The Economist on about 4,300 free trade zones in 2015, and its own 2018 survey finding more than 2,300 zones across 61 responding members.
3. The estimates differ because each counts a different set of enclaves and each surveys a different set of countries.

Labour Rules Can Differ Inside the Fence, and That Difference Is a Legal Choice

1. Bangladesh governs work inside its export processing zones under the EPZ Labour Act 2019, a separate statute from the Bangladesh Labour Act that applies outside the zones.
2. The road map of actions agreed with the International Labour Organization commits the government to amend that Act in the light of comments from the ILO supervisory bodies on Conventions 81, 87 and 98, over the period from June 2024 to December 2026.
3. A separate legal regime inside the fence settles what workers are entitled to ask for and settles nothing about what they receive, because that turns on how many inspectors visit, on whether a complaint route reaches a decision, and on whether workers can organize to use it.

Counting Migrants on a Date and Counting Moves Across a Year Give Two Different Numbers

1. The United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs put the number of international migrants at 304 million in mid-2024, which is 3.7 percent of world population, in its International Migrant Stock 2024 dataset.
2. That figure is a stock, meaning a count of the people living in a country other than the one they were born in on a single date.
3. The OECD's International Migration Outlook 2025 recorded 6.2 million new permanent-type migrants to OECD countries during 2024, a fall of 4 percent on 2023.
4. That figure is a flow, meaning a count of the admissions recorded across one year.
5. Inside the 2024 flow the OECD counted 934,000 new permanent labour migrants, down 21 percent on 2023, and roughly 2.3 million temporary work authorizations in OECD countries other than Poland, unchanged on the previous year.

Labour Migration, Asylum and Irregular Entry Are Three Legal Categories Counted Separately

1. An economic migrant enters on a permission whose conditions are tied to work, so a change in those conditions changes what the migrant is permitted to do.
2. An asylum seeker has lodged a claim for protection that has not yet been decided under a body of law separate from the one governing work permissions.
3. Recognition as a refugee is a declaratory act, so a decision confirms that a person already met the 1951 Convention definition rather than conferring the status.
4. Irregular entry describes how a person crossed a border and says nothing about why they moved or what status they end up holding.
5. One person can hold more than one of these statuses across a few years, so the categories name legal positions rather than kinds of people.

A Points System Sets Who Qualifies While a Cap Sets How Many Arrive

1. The United Kingdom's Skilled Worker route requires 70 points under the Immigration Rules, made up of 50 mandatory points and 20 tradeable ones.
2. The mandatory 50 come from sponsorship by an approved employer, worth 20, a job at an appropriate skill level, worth 20, and English at the required standard, worth 10.
3. The main tradeable option awards the remaining 20 points for a salary of at least 41,700 pounds a year and at least the going rate for the occupation.
4. Canada ranks candidates in its Express Entry pool on the Comprehensive Ranking System out of 1,200 points, of which a provincial nomination alone is worth 600.

A Statutory Cap Fixes the Number Regardless of What Employers Want

1. United States law sets the annual H-1B limit for specialty occupation workers at 65,000 under 8 U.S.C. 1184(g)(1)(A), with a further 20,000 exemptions under section 1184(g)(5)(C) for holders of a master's or higher degree from a United States institution.
2. Section 1152(a)(2) caps any single foreign state at 7 percent of the family-sponsored and employment-based immigrant visas issued in a fiscal year.
3. Two applicants with identical qualifications therefore wait different lengths of time according to the country their visa number is charged to, which is normally their country of birth.
4. Canada publishes targets instead, setting 380,000 permanent resident admissions a year in its 2026 to 2028 Immigration Levels Plan of 4 November 2025, with an economic class target of 239,800 for 2026.
5. A cap is a legal ceiling that cannot be exceeded, whereas a target is a planning figure that admissions are steered towards.

A Labour Market Test Moves the Decision from the State's List to the Employer's Evidence

1. Directive (EU) 2021/1883, adopted on 20 October 2021, replaced the earlier EU Blue Card directive of 2009.
2. Article 7 allows a member state to reject an application after checking whether the vacancy could be filled from the national or Union workforce, or by third country nationals already lawfully resident.
3. Article 5 requires a salary threshold set at no less than 1.0 and no more than 1.6 times the average gross annual salary in the member state concerned.
   1. Article 5 also lets a member state drop that threshold to 80 percent of its own figure for professions in the top two ISCO groups where third country workers are particularly needed, provided the lower figure stays at or above the national average salary.
4. Canada runs the equivalent step as a Labour Market Impact Assessment, which an employer must obtain before hiring most temporary foreign workers.

A Seasonal Scheme Admits the Labour without Admitting the Settlement

1. The United Kingdom's Seasonal Worker visa allows a stay of up to six months for horticulture work, and a stay from 2 October to 31 December for poultry work.
2. Home Office sponsor guidance published on 8 April 2026 sets the 2026 allocation at 41,000 places for horticulture and 1,900 for poultry.
3. That guidance requires horticulture sponsors to offer at least 32 hours of paid employment each week at no less than 12.71 pounds an hour.
4. The visa carries no right to bring family members, no access to public funds and no route into a permanent job.
5. Permission runs through a licensed scheme operator, so moving between employers takes the operator's administrative consent.
6. New Zealand runs the Recognised Seasonal Employer scheme, whose cap the government raised by 1,250 to 20,750 places for the 2024 to 2025 season on 14 August 2024.

A Free Movement Regime Removes the Permission Step Rather than Easing It

1. Eurostat estimated that 14.1 million people living in an EU country on 1 January 2025 were citizens of another EU country.
2. The ECOWAS Protocol A/P.1/5/79, signed at Dakar on 29 May 1979, set out the same idea for West Africa in three phases covering the right of entry, the right of residence and the right of establishment.
3. Article 3 gives a citizen of the Community visiting another member state for up to 90 days entry free of visa requirements, on production of valid travel documents and a health certificate.
4. A right written into a protocol reaches a traveller only where the later phases have been brought into force and applied at the border post.

Schengen Governs the Check at the Border and Not the Right to Work

1. The Schengen area covers 29 countries and over 450 million people, on the Council of the European Union's own description.
2. Checks at the air and sea borders of Bulgaria and Romania were lifted from 31 March 2024, and checks at their land borders from 1 January 2025.
3. The right of an EU worker to take a job in another member state comes from Article 45 of the Treaty rather than from the Schengen rules.

A Legal Status Sets the Terms, and What Happens Next Turns on Who Enforces Them

1. Qatar adopted a non-discriminatory minimum wage in Law No. 17 of 2020 on 30 August 2020, which entered into force on 20 March 2021 at 1,000 Qatari riyals a month plus at least 300 riyals for food and 500 for accommodation where the employer does not provide them.
2. The International Labour Organization records that the wage applies to all workers of all nationalities in all sectors, including those employed in households.
3. Decree Law No. 18 of 2020 amending the Labour Law and Decree Law No. 19 of 2020 amending the law on entry and residence, both announced on 30 August 2020, removed the requirement for a no-objection certificate before a worker changes employer.
4. Each law changed what a worker is entitled to, leaving whether the change reaches a person to depend on knowing the rule exists, on being able to lodge a complaint, and on that complaint being decided.
5. The European Commission's Annual Report on Intra-EU Labour Mobility 2024, published on 7 February 2025, records an employment rate of 78 percent for EU movers aged 20 to 64, against 76 percent for nationals and 63 percent for third country nationals.
6. That gap is not a consequence of having moved, because the three groups differ in the conditions attached to their permits, in whether their qualifications are recognized, in language and in how employers treat them.

The WTO's Register Counts Trade Agreements Two Ways and Leaves Others Out

1. The Regional Trade Agreements Database listed 79 agreements in force that had not been notified on 7 September 2026.
2. An unnotified agreement still binds its parties, so 388 is a floor for the number of agreements in force rather than a total.

The Same Agreement Can Be Notified to the WTO More Than Once

1. The Regional Trade Agreements Database counted 642 notifications in force on 7 September 2026 against 388 agreements counted once each.
2. An agreement covering both goods and services is notified once under Article XXIV of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade and again under Article V of the General Agreement on Trade in Services.
3. Accessions by later members are notified separately again, so a count of trade agreements has to say which of the register's three numbers it is using.