Deborah Z. Cass - The Constitutionalization of the World Trade Organization: Legitimacy, Democracy, and Community in the International Trading System

(p.iv)

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• D. Cass 2005

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• First published 2005

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• Cass, Deborah Z.

• The constitutionalization of the World Trade Organization : legitimacy,
• democracy, and community in the international trading system / Deborah Z. Cass.

• p. cm.

• Includes index.

• ISBN 0199284636 (alk. paper) ISBN 0199285845 (alk. paper)
• World Trade Organization. 2. Foreign trade regulation. 3. Commerce. I. Title.
• K4610.C37 2005
• 382. 92dc22

• 2005011138

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(p.v) To Eva and Ephraim, and Ben and Esther,

who came such a long way,

and to Hannah and Rosa, who are just starting out (p.vi)

The Oxford University Press International Economic Law Series is designed to present works that deeply probe problems regarding the globalized and interdependent world in which we now live. As the series General Editor, I am honoured to present another distinguished work which develops material relevant to this subject. This latest volume in the International Economic Law Series, is a book about the constitutionalization of the WTO, authored by Dr Deborah Cass.

This extraordinary book probes the frontier of international economic law. The word constitutionalization is a controversial word, when used in international relations, and indeed, the use of it in the context of institutions such as the WTO, has been criticized by diplomats and others who have a strong inclination to resist changes which involve departure from older ideas of sovereignty. Thus, to use the nomenclature constitution for a treaty-based institutional structure is threatening.

Dr Cass has done just this in an extraordinarily focused and well-developed analysis of constitutional principles in connection with the WTO. The book is very stimulating and is clearly designed to force readers to think about a major international economic institution in a manner that is substantially different from many of the traditional approaches. It is thus an excellent contribution to the general literature of international economic law, and also specifically to thinking about the WTO, which has, itself, been the subject of considerable recent attention regarding its institutional structure.

It is my pleasure to introduce this book, which will certainly enhance public and expert understanding of a number of complex topics concerning the globalized world in which we live.

JOHN H. JACKSON

In December 2004, with war ongoing in Iraq, and the elections just over in Afghanistan following a lengthy conflict, the World Trade Organization opened accession talks with both countries. In the same year, the British Chancellor of the1 Exchequer, Gordon Brown, envisioned a new Marshall Plan for the developing world, including increased aid targeting health, education, and infant mortality; continuing trade rule reform; and debt forgiveness. No less controversially, he called for increased trade and a globalization that also means both security and justice on a global scale. As the tenth anniversary year of the WTO approached, it seemed that policy-makers around the world had become convinced that, in a post 9/11 environment, international peace and security issues would only be tackled effectively if international trade, poverty reduction, health, and development could also be addressed.

The policies proposed were, of course, contentious. In 2001, Brazil had manufactured and supplied AIDS drugs free to people living with HIV, and India had threatened to sell drugs to an international medical organization for a fraction of the cost at which those drugs would have been supplied by a major pharmaceutical company. Both actions, potentially, were in contravention of WTO rules. Wherever one looked, it seemed as though international trade, once the domain of Geneva-based bureaucrats, had now become an issue of intense political interest. In 2004, Turkey was invited, subject to some strict conditions, to join the largest regional arrangement within the international trade system, the European Union, the first Muslim country to do so. The EU was enlarged, and with it came new questions about the type and level of compensation payable to states, under the GATT, for losses suffered as a result of the new accessions. In 2005, quotas in the textiles and clothing industry came to an end, marking not only the decline of developed state protectionism in this sector, but also the beginning of difficult South-South negotiations between China and less-developed states, the latter being vulnerable to Chinas comparative advantage in the textile and clothing market. Also in that year, China marked its first three years as a member of the formal trading system with a sometimes mixed, though mostly positive, report card.