Negotiating Strategies
Pragmatism and the WTO Agreement Chios Carmody
C
urrent events in the World Trade Organization (WTO) make the organization and its treaty, the Agreement Establishing the World Trade Organization (WTO Agreement),1 look hobbled and close to collapse. Three points need to be kept in mind regarding WTO reform and modernization. First, the WTO Agreement offers a number of flexibilities for WTO member countries to exercise in shaping their trade relations. At a time of doubt about the value of interdependence, more vigorous assertion of rights under WTO law is to be expected. Second, legality and compliance in WTO law are relative phenomena. The WTO Agreement mandates compliance with the treaty, but not “compliance at any cost.” Third, alternate contractual and constitutive visions of the WTO Agreement are discernible. After the constitutionalism of the treaty’s founding phase, we may be moving toward a more “contractualist” era as the treaty matures. All of these points suggest the WTO Agreement may wax and wane — and possibly wax again. Patience and a long-term perspective on the treaty’s future are required.
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