ABSTRACT
Trade facilitation, together with cuts of tariffs and Non-tariff Measures (NTMs), serves as a solution to the externality of trade costs. Immediately after World War II, the International Trade Organization and the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade under construction afforded the most capacious 'public sphere' for trade talks. Constructivism would be instrumental in rationalizing an international record on trade facilitation. In the opinion of constructivists, conventions are norms that foster and give rise to games of countries' coordination. Constructivists provide a relatively peaceful perception that state interests are given their meanings and constructed as a result of social interaction in an international society. International accords are multifarious. An international accord might be a convention globally applicable to a wide range of states, or a regional deal adopted by limited participants; it might be an independent treaty; and it might be mandatory on a pacta sunt servanda basis.
