ABSTRACT
Tracing the historical evolution of the institutional basis of international trade regulation and its role in the governance of the global economy provides only a partial account of story behind the WTO. Central to that evolution has been a distinct organisational practice arising from the employment of a particular set of principles – principles which taken together comprise and define the organisational practice of this particular expression of trade regulation as well as the family resemblance it shares with its predecessors. These core principles have been in evidence since the first attempt to establish a formal trade body and have become synonymous with the term ‘multilateralism’. The ITO, GATT, OTC and WTO have all embodied the same core set of principles around which other provisions and mechanisms have been grafted. This core set of principles does not, however, refer to the organisation of a particular institutional hierarchy associated with the day-to-day functioning of each organisation, such as a ministerial conference, general council or secretariat – though here too there is a degree of historical residue. Rather, it refers to the core principles around which international trade is organised and thus regulated. In this sense, then, the core principles define the architecture of trade regulation. It follows that, to develop a more complete understanding of the legal framework of the latest institutional expression of trade regulation, we must first understand more completely what we mean by the organisational practice of multilateralism, the core principles central to its expression, and, by extension, the conceptual parameters within which to analyse that framework.
