ABSTRACT
This chapter considers the role that multilateral trade and investment liberalization has played and will play the emerging globalisation of the world economy. It reviews the contribution which the World Trade Organisation (WTO) has to make to the process, drawing on evidence from the operation of its dispute settlement mechanism, and comments on some of the problem areas facing the WTO into the future. The chapter argues that one major influence on the globalisation of business is the liberalization of markets. Multilateral liberalization is particularly important since it has the potential to overcome the patchwork of agreements which would otherwise emerge at national, bilateral and regional levels, causing distortions in decision-making and in the allocation of resources. Unlike trade liberalization, which took place within the multilateral General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade framework, investment liberalization was chiefly a consequence of the unilateral adoption of national liberalization measures by large numbers of countries as well as regional integration schemes.
