ABSTRACT
In 2004, the former Director-General of the World Trade Organization (WTO) from 2005 to 2013, Pascal Lamy, vividly framed the paradoxes of global governance caught between the contradictory exigencies of power and legitimacy. Because of the globalized nature of the contemporary capitalistic production of goods and services, all nations link into a growing web of monetary and human fl ux. If the power to regulate such a world economy lies in international institutions – such as the WTO, the International Monetary Fund (IMF), and the United Nations (UN) – on the other hand, historically speaking, legitimacy belongs to nation-states in which democracy as a political institution has emerged during the nineteenth century. Nation-states are legitimate institutions without economic power, whereas international institutions are powerful institutions deprived of democratic legitimacy. 1 Pascal
* This chapter is part of the results of the Research Project on “ Current Trends of Chinese Law towards NonTrade Concerns such as Sustainable Development and the Protection of Environment, Public Health, Food Safety, Cultural, Social and Economic Rights, Labor Rights and the Reduction of Poverty from the Perspective of International Law and WTO Law ” coordinated by Professor Paolo Davide Farah at gLAWcal – Global Law Initiatives for Sustainable Development (United Kingdom) and at West Virginia University John D. Rockefeller IV School of Policy and Politics, Department of Public Administration, in partnership with the Center of Advanced Studies on Contemporary China (CASCC) in Turin (Italy), Maastricht University Faculty of Law, Department of International and European Law and IGIR – Institute for Globalisation and International Regulation (Netherlands), and Tsinghua University, School of Law, Institute of Public International Law and the Center for Research on Intellectual Property Law in Beijing (China). An early draft of this chapter was presented at the Conferences Series on “ China’s Infl uence on Non-Trade Concerns in International Economic Law ”, First Conference held at the Center of Advanced Studies on Contemporary China (CASCC) in Turin on November 23-24, 2011. This publication and the Conference Series were sponsored by China-EU School of Law (CESL) at the China University of Political Science and Law (CUPL). The activities of CESL at CUPL are supported by the European Union and the People’s Republic of China.
