The Constitutionalization of the World Trade Organization

The Constitutionalization of the World Trade Organization

Author: Deborah Z. Cass

Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA

Published: 2005

Total Pages: 306

ISBN-13:

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This is a book about the constitutionalization of the World Trade Organization, and the contemporary development of institutional forms and democratic ideas associated with constitutionalism within the world trading system. It is about constitutionalization enthusiasts who promote institutions, management techniques, rights discourse and quasi-judicial power to construct a constitution for the WTO. It is about constitutional skeptics who fear the effect the phenomenon of constitutionalization is having on the autonomy of states, the capacity of the WTO to consider non-economic and non-free-trade goals, and democratic processes at the WTO and within the nation-state. The aim of the study, then, is to disentangle debates about the various meanings of the term 'constitution' when it used to apply to the World Trade Organization, and to reflect upon the significance of those meanings for more general international law conceptions of constitutions. Cass argues that the WTO is not and should not be described as a constitution, either by the standards of any received account of that term, or by the lights of any of the current WTO models. Under these definitions serious issues of legitimacy, democracy and community are at stake. The WTO would lack a proper political structure to balance the work of its judicial bodies; it may curtail the ability of states to decide matters of national economic interest; it lacks authorization by a coherent political community; and, it risks an emphasis upon economic goals and pure free trade over other, equally important, social values. Instead, Cass argues that what is needed is a constitutionalized WTO which considers the economic development needs of states and takes account of the skewed playing field of international trade and its effect on the economic prospects of developing countries. In short, trading democracy, legitimacy and community and not trading constitutionalization, are the biggest challenges facing the WTO.


Efficiency, Equity, and Legitimacy

Efficiency, Equity, and Legitimacy

Author: Roger B. Porter

Publisher: Brookings Institution Press

Published: 2001

Total Pages: 468

ISBN-13: 9780815771630

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Despite its widely acknowledged contribution to global prosperity over the past half century, the movement toward further liberalization has increasingly been challenged. This collection of essays examine several key issues at the heart of the debate over the multilateral trading system.


Treaty Interpretation by the WTO Appellate Body

Treaty Interpretation by the WTO Appellate Body

Author: Isabelle Van Damme

Publisher:

Published: 2009

Total Pages: 487

ISBN-13: 0199562237

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This book analyzes how the Appellate Body uses particular principles of general international law in interpreting the WTO covered agreements. It deals equally with general international law and WTO law. The aim is to explain how the Appellate Body interprets and applies customary international law on treaty interpretation in dealing with the WTO covered agreements. The main concern is to analyze the judicial reasoning and ways of justifying judicial decision-making. In particular, it answers the question of how the Appellate Body explains its reading of WTO treaty language. It is argued that the Appellate Body has interpreted the WTO covered agreements in a contextual and effective manner, an approach that corresponds with general international law. The character of the WTO covered agreements has, nevertheless, confronted the Appellate Body with some questions of interpretation that were until recently unexplored or neglected by other courts and tribunals. In that sense, the Appellate Body has contributed to the development of general international law on treaty interpretation, or at least to its practice. WTO law is primarily treaty law, but increasingly soft law and broader themes and values from other disciplines, such as governance, variable geometry and legitimacy, are introduced and discussed. Customary international law - with the exception of the principles of treaty interpretation - and general principles of law are often seen as excluded entirely. An ancillary theme of this proposed monograph is the extent to which customary international law and general principles of law have penetrated WTO law through the technique of treaty interpretation.


The United Nations Charter as the Constitution of the International Community

The United Nations Charter as the Constitution of the International Community

Author: Bardo Fassbender

Publisher: BRILL

Published: 2009

Total Pages: 228

ISBN-13: 9004175105

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The a oeconstitutionalizationa of international law is one of the most intensely debated issues in contemporary international legal doctrine. The term is used to describe a number of features which distinguish the present international legal order from a oeclassicala international law, in particular its shift from bilateralism to community interest, and from an inter-state system to a global legal order committed to the well-being of the individual person. The author of this book belongs to the leading participants of the constitutionalization debate. He argues that there indeed exists a constitutional law of the international community that is built on and around the Charter of the United Nations. In this book, he explains why the Charter has a constitutional quality and what legal consequences arise from that characterization.


Constitutional Economics of the WTO.

Constitutional Economics of the WTO.

Author: Joel P. Trachtman

Publisher:

Published: 2010

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13:

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This chapter examines the World Trade Organization (WTO) from the social scientific perspective of constitutional economics. This chapter thus seeks to identify the causes and consequences of constitutionalization. Assuming that states act with intentionality and accuracy in their establishment of organizational features, the cause of constitutionalization is the desire to effect the consequences of constitutionalization, so the focus here is on the potential consequences of constitutionalization in and in connection with the WTO.


The International Constitutional Order

The International Constitutional Order

Author: Erika de Wet

Publisher: Amsterdam University Press

Published: 2005-05-12

Total Pages: 35

ISBN-13: 9056293877

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This title can be previewed in Google Books - http://books.google.com/books'vid=ISBN9789056293871.


The World Trade Constitution

The World Trade Constitution

Author: John O. McGinnis

Publisher:

Published: 2001

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13:

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Conventional wisdom holds that the World Trade Organization (WTO) necessarily poses a threat to sovereignty and representative government within its member nations. Professors McGinnis and Movsesian refute this view. They argue that the WTO can be understood as a constitutive structure that, by reducing the power of protectionist interest groups, can simultaneously promote international trade and domestic democracy. Indeed, in promoting both free trade and accountable government, the WTO reflects many of the insights that inform our own Madisonian Constitution. Professors McGinnis and Movsesian reject recent proposals to grant the WTO regulatory authority, endorsing instead the WTO's limited adjudicative power as the better means to resolve the difficult problem of covert protectionism. They develop a series of procedure-oriented tests that would permit WTO tribunals to invalidate covert protectionism without supplanting national judgments on labor, environmental, health, and safety policies. Finally, they demonstrate that the WTO's emerging approach to the problem of covert protectionism largely comports with the democracy-reinforcing jurisprudence they recommend, and they offer some suggestions for reforms that would help prevent the organization from going astray in the future.


World Trade Law After Neoliberalism

World Trade Law After Neoliberalism

Author: Andrew Lang

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2011-09-22

Total Pages: 416

ISBN-13: 0199592640

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It is often argued that there is an inherent tension between international human rights law and the rules of free trade. This book explores the assumptions underlying this debate and argues that we need to reconsider them, focusing more on how expert knowledge and informal relationships shape trade law and its interaction with human rights.