Institutional linkages : WTO – IMF, World Bank, WIPO, WHO : a global administrative law approach as a means for supplying public goods

Abstract

A core issue confronting the multilateral trading system down the years is the extent of its competence. How is the World Trade Organization (WTO) mandate shaped? Questions concerning the appropriate reach of the WTO and whether particular subjects should be covered – and if so in what institutional context - has been the subject of lively debate, and the difference of views on this matter have often influenced the pace of progress in multilateral negotiation rounds. The concerns voiced in the late 1970s and 1980s about whether trade in services had a place in GATT were followed by similar discussions on TRIPS, labor rights, environment, competition and so on. The examination of the WTO's scope usually has taken place in the context of trade linkages debates, reflecting either an effort to determine its optimal reach or an explicit attempt to bolster its legal and political capacity to promote norms that lack an institutional venue, or are sheltered by an institution that does not have an effective compliance mechanism. Given that the WTO is embedded in a broader international environment, some have proposed the use of WTO's enforcement power to promote objectives ostensibly remote from the multilateral trading system. Others have come up with terms such 'trade-relatedness' and 'specificity' for identifying which issues should be subject to negotiation within the WTO. The shape of the WTO agenda matters because it affects perceptions about the legitimacy and efficiency of the trading system. At the same time, the compartmentalized international legal order sets certain limits to WTO's capacity to integrate non-WTO obligations. Hence, claims for WTO accountability to, or accommodation of, non-WTO values must inevitably be measured against the presence of other international regimes whose goals should cohere, but, in reality, may conflict with free trade.