商界人士，新闻工作者，政治人物，外交官，教师以及几乎机敏的任何人都广泛认可和评论的现代世界的一个重要特征是相互依存度和“国际化”程度日益提高。您在Internet上阅读此消息的能力本身就是思想快速，低成本地超越国界的力量的体现。事实证明，技术是鼓励跨国界合作的推动力。运输，电信和计算机技术的发展促进了经济的变化，例如贸易壁垒的减少，金融市场的国际化，全球公司的崛起以及国际商品和服务贸易量的大量增加。这些趋势伴随着政治发展，例如国家的区域贸易集团的兴起，国际上为达成共同的法律和技术规则以支配商业交易的国际努
An important feature of the modern world which is widely recognised and commented upon by business people, journalists, politicians, diplomats, teachers and virtually anyone with the alertness to look about them, is its increasing inter-dependence and ?internationalisation?. Your ability to read this message on the World Wide Web is itself a manifestation of the power of ideas to transcend national boundaries with great rapidity and at low cost. Technology has proved to be an agent which encourages co-operation across national boundaries. Technological developments in transport, telecommunications and computing have encouraged economic changes such as the decline in barriers to trade, the internationalisation of financial markets, the rise of global companies, and a massive increase in the volume of international trade in goods and services. These trends have been accompanied by political developments such as the rise of regional trading groupings of countries, international efforts to agree about common legal and technical rules to govern business dealings, arguments about ?tax competition? between countries, as well as increasing concern about the environmental consequences associated with world economic development. Enormous social tensions arise as these international forces come into conflict with long-established ways of doing things in every country. Political and social systems are in a continuous process of adjustment to an increasingly open world