Reconstructing World Politics: Norms, Discourse, and Community

This Article argues that the conventional (rationalist) approach to world politics characterized by political bargain cannot fully capture the new social reality under the contemporary global ambience where ideational factors such as ideas, values, culture, and norms have become more salient and influential not only in explaining but also in prescribing state behaviors. After bringing rationalism’s paradigmatic limitations into relief, the Article offers a sociological framework that highlights a reflective, intersubjective communication among states and consequent norm-building process. Under this new paradigm, one can understand an international organization as a “community” (Gemeinschaft), not as a mere contractual instrument of its contracting parties (Gesellschaft). The Article applies the new paradigm to the World Trade Organization (WTO) as it describes the WTO’s institutional evolution from a power-oriented, tariff-reducing contract to a norm-oriented world trade community

Poison in the Wine? Tracing Gats-Minus Commitments in Regional Trade Agreements

Commitments in regional trade agreements (RTAs) that fall short of the same countries' obligations under the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) are a relatively frequent phenomenon. However, they have gone widely unnoticed in the literature to date and drawn very little attention in relevant WTO fora either. Nevertheless, 'minus commitments' are potentially poisonous and, for various reasons, would deserve close attention. Given the broad definitional scope of the GATS, extending inter alia to commercial presence, such commitments may impinge upon the rights of third-country investors in the RTA economies. Their existence casts doubts on the legal status of the respective agreements under the GATS and can have severe implications for the trading system overall. If not complemented by comprehensive Most-favoured-Nation clauses, the RTAs concerned are disconnected from the WTO and virtually impossible to multilateralize. Based on a review of some 80,000 commitments in 66 agreements, this study seeks to develop a reasonably comprehensive picture of the frequency of 'minus commitments' and their dosage in terms of sectors, measures and modes of supply. It also discusses potential remedies from a WTO perspective