Trade-related development Case study 5 The WDR 2004: making services work

With remarkable prescience, Upendra Baxi observed in 1994 the ‘emergence of a market-friendly (or specifically trade-related) human rights paradigm’ (Baxi, 1994). In an embryonic ‘post-Dunkel’ world, states were becoming more the enablers of capital than the representatives of their citizens. Transnational corporations were the new recipients of internationally guaranteed and enforceable rights, with no corresponding legal obligations.