ABSTRACT

The international institutions discussed so far have at least one thing in common: the definition of subsidies and the determination of whether certain practices constitute a subsidy are left to international bodies. In the case of GATT Track II, or even EFTA in the late 1960s, this led to definitional chaos and ultimately the breakdown of the process. However, the one constant was that no country judged the government practices of its trading partners unilaterally. Even in bilateral contexts, the emphasis was on negotiation and compromise through international institutions, rather than accusation and con­ frontation, practices which characterise unilateralism.