{"id":1578,"date":"2004-07-01T09:02:01","date_gmt":"2004-07-01T13:02:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.journals.law.harvard.edu\/ilj\/site\/?p=1578"},"modified":"2011-04-05T21:52:12","modified_gmt":"2011-04-06T01:52:12","slug":"issue_45-2_guzman","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/ilj\/2004\/07\/issue_45-2_guzman\/","title":{"rendered":"Global Governance and the WTO"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em>Since 1947 the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) and its successor, the World Trade Organization (WTO), have brought about a dramatic reduction in barriers to international trade. The WTO has become one of the world\u2019s most dominant international institutions, established a reasonably effective system of dispute resolution, and developed a nearly universal membership. These achievements, however, have not protected the organization from external criticism or internal challenges.<\/p>\n<p>Indeed, the remarkable success of the GATT\/WTO system is, to a significant degree, responsible for the challenges now facing the WTO. Over time, and especially as a result of the Uruguay Round, the GATT\/WTO has moved from a system of rules prohibiting trade measures to a system of rules requiring affirmative government actions. The consequence is a WTO engaged in monitoring and adjudicating the legality of domestic rules that are not  primarily or exclusively about trade. The relevant WTO obligations  include rules governing the protection of intellectual property, service  industries, and health and safety measures.\u00a0Though each of these WTO  rules, with the possible exception of the Agreement on Trade-Related  Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (\u201cTRIPs Agreement\u201d), has an  important connection to liberalized trade, their substance makes it  impossible to consider them in strictly trade terms.<\/p>\n<p>The impact of the trading regime is also felt in areas that are not subject to any specific WTO regulation. For example, environmental policy, human rights,  labor, and competition policy are not directly within the jurisdiction  of the WTO, but in each of these areas trade and the trading system have  influenced policymaking. The influence of WTO obligations on non-trade  issues has generated cries of protest from many quarters. Critics argue  that the WTO remains a trade institution at heart, and that its forays  into what were traditionally considered non-trade areas have caused the non-trade values at stake to be ignored in favor of trade concerns. Thus, the argument goes, the tremendous power of the organization, combined with its efforts to influence policies in non-trade areas, has elevated trade at the expense of other issues.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Since 1947 the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) and its successor, the World Trade Organization (WTO), have brought about a dramatic reduction in barriers to international trade. The WTO has become one of the world\u2019s most dominant international institutions, established a reasonably effective system of dispute resolution, and developed a nearly universal membership. These achievements, however, have not protected the organization from external criticism or internal challenges.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"_FSMCFIC_featured_image_caption":"","_FSMCFIC_featured_image_nocaption":"","_FSMCFIC_featured_image_hide":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[123],"tags":[64,57],"class_list":["post-1578","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-print-archives","tag-trade","tag-wto"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/peZu3S-ps","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/ilj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1578","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/ilj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/ilj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/ilj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/ilj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1578"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/ilj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1578\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/ilj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1578"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/ilj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1578"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/ilj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1578"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}