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The Impact of WTO SPS Law on EU Food Regulations pp 31–57Cite as

Evaluating the Impact of International Law: A Taxonomy of Analytical Choices

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Part of the book series: Studies in European Economic Law and Regulation ((SEELR,volume 2))

Abstract

The SPS Agreement is commonly adjudged by legal commentators to place a constraint on domestic policy-makers and therefore threaten WTO members’ legitimate policy preferences. This chapter takes a first step to understanding why this view has come to dominate writing on SPS rules. It identifies and discusses three major analytical choices—field of enquiry, conception of how law functions and evaluative perspective—that, consciously or not, shape the evaluation of the impact of law. Firstly, the analyst decides the appropriate object of study (field of enquiry), for example, formal texts, domestic legal practice or the social effects of regulations that will significantly inform the conclusions drawn about the rules under study. Secondly, a conception of how international law functions will determine expectations as to the consequences of the legal regime. In particular, those viewing law as ‘regulating’ domestic actors will anticipate different outcomes to those focussing on the ‘generative’ potential of law to instil new ideas and behaviour. Finally, the commentator may choose to study the impact of international rules from the ‘ascending’ perspective of the State, for example, its implications on sovereignty or national values, or alternatively from the ‘descending’ perspective of the legal regime, that is, the furthering of its stated goals. This choice of perspective will bring to fore different aspects of the functioning of rules. The chapter finally draws together these dimensions to form a taxonomy of analytical choices which creates a framework for assessing commentary on the SPS Agreement.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    See Chap. 1, s 1.3 above.

  2. 2.

    R Howse and PC Mavroidis, ‘Europe’s Evolving Regulatory Strategy for GMOs—The Issue of Consistency with WTO Law: Of Kine and Brine’ (2000) 24 Fordham International Law Journal 317.

  3. 3.

    JP Trachtman, ‘International Economic Law Research: A Taxonomy’ in C Picker, I Brunn and D Arner (eds), International Economic Law: The State and Future of the Discipline (Oxford, Hart Publishing, 2008) 43.

  4. 4.

    SJ Anaya, ‘Divergent Discourses about International Law, Indigenous Peoples, and Rights over Lands and Natural Resources: Toward a Realist Trend’ (2005) 16 Colorado Journal of International Environmental Law and Policy 237, 244.

  5. 5.

    See Art 31 of the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties: ‘A treaty shall be interpreted in good faith in accordance with the ordinary meaning to be given to the terms of the treaty in their context and in the light of its object and purpose.’ Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties, 23 May 1969, S Exec Doc L, 92-1 (1970), 1155 UNTS 331 (entered into force on 27 January 1980) (VCLT).

  6. 6.

    Although not de jure having precedential quality, the jurisprudence is widely construed to be critical de facto to interpretation. See R Bhala, ‘The Precedent Setters: De Facto Stare Decisis Fact in WTO Adjudication (Part Two of a Trilogy)’ (1999) 9 Journal of Transnational Law and Policy 1.

  7. 7.

    The expression ‘self-contained’ has been the general shorthand for describing this perspective on WTO law. See JP Kelly, ‘Judicial Activism at the World Trade Organization: Developing Principles of Self-Restraint’ (2002) 22 Northwestern Journal of International Law and Business 353, 357. The WTO Dispute Settlement Understanding (DSU) lends itself to this view of WTO law, stressing throughout that dispute settlement applies to the ‘covered agreements’ and ‘serves to preserve the rights and obligations of Members under the covered agreements’ (Art 3(2)), but also see Arts 7(2) and 11. Understanding on Rules and Procedures Governing the Settlement of Disputes, 15 April 1994, UNTS, vol 1869, 401.

  8. 8.

    J Pauwelyn, ‘The Role of Public International Law in the WTO: How Far Can We Go?’ (2001) 95 AJIL 535, 552. See also A Lindros and M Mehring, ‘Dispelling the Chimera of Self-Contained Regimes: International Law and the WTO’ (2005) 16 EJIL 857.

  9. 9.

    In brief, Art 38(1) sources are international conventions, international custom, general principles of law, judicial decisions and the teachings of publicists. Statute of the International Court of Justice, 26 June 1945, 59 Stat 1055, 33 UNTS 993. Palmeter and Mavroidis argue that the terms of reference established by Art 7 of the DSU (to ‘address the relevant provisions in any agreement or agreements signed by the parties to the dispute’) establishes this article as ‘the WTO substitute, mutatis mutandis, for Article 38’. D Palmeter and PC Mavroidis, ‘The WTO Legal System: Sources of Law’ (1998) 92 AJIL 398, 399.

  10. 10.

    Pauwelyn (n 8) 551 (giving the example of a trade right that must be foregone due to the agreement of a later environmental rule).

  11. 11.

    JP Kelly, ‘Naturalism in International Adjudication’ (2008) 18 Duke Journal of Comparative and International Law 395, 412.

  12. 12.

    See JL Dunoff, ‘The WTO in Transition: Of Constituents, Competence and Coherence’ (2001) 33 George Washington International Law Review 979, 992; Lindros and Mehring (n 8) 866–873.

  13. 13.

    The focus here is only on food-related standards and not the other international standards referred to in SPS Annex A, para 3.

  14. 14.

    For a discussion of the implications of ‘soft’ and ‘hard’ norms, see H Hillgenberg, ‘A Fresh Look at Soft Law’ (1999) 10 EJIL 499, 504. See also GC Shaffer and MA Pollack, ‘Hard vs. Soft Law: Alternatives, Complements, and Antagonists in International Governance’ (2010) 94 Minnesota Law Review 706.

  15. 15.

    SPS Agreement Art 12.1.

  16. 16.

    For an extensive discussion on the legal status of SPS decisions, see J Scott, The WTO Agreement on Sanitary and Phytosanitary Measures. A Commentary (Oxford, OUP, 2007) 70–72.

  17. 17.

    VCLT Art 31(1). This was the approach taken by the EC—Biotech panel, for example, in defining ‘pests’. See EC—Measures affecting the Approval and Marketing of Biotech Products (EC—Biotech), Panel Report (adopted 29 September 2006) WT/DS/291–293/R, para 7.238. For a critique of the Panel’s methods in this respect, see MA Young, ‘The WTO’s Use of Relevant Rules of International Law: An Analysis of the Biotech Case’ (2007) 56 ICLQ 907, 918.

  18. 18.

    See Scott (n 16) 73 and fn 141.

  19. 19.

    Ultimately, as Koskenniemi notes, ‘anything can be labelled ‘formalism’ because the term is purely relational’. M Koskenniemi, ‘What is International Law?’ in MD Evans (ed), International Law (Oxford, OUP, 2003) 101.

  20. 20.

    GC Shaffer, ‘A New Legal Realism: Method in International Economic Law Scholarship’ in C Picker, I Brunn and D Arner (eds), International Economic Law: The State and Future of The Discipline (Oxford, Hart Publishing, 2008) (International Economic Law) 41.

  21. 21.

    Paul Schiff Berman, ‘Law and Globalisation’ (2005) 43 Columbia Journal of Transnational Law 485, 492.

  22. 22.

    See BG Garth, ‘Introduction: Taking New Legal Realism to Transnational Issues and Institutions’ (2006) 31 Law and Social Inquiry: Journal of the American Bar Foundation 939 (on new legal realism); LA Dickinson, ‘Toward a “New” New Haven School of International Law?’ (2007) 32 YJIL 547; Berman, ibid (on sociolegal scholarship).

  23. 23.

    SD Franck, ‘Empiricism and International Law: Insights for Investment Treaty Dispute Resolution’ (2008) 48 VJIL 767, 771.

  24. 24.

    Shaffer (n 20) 42.

  25. 25.

    JK Levit, ‘Bottom-Up Lawmaking through a Pluralist Lens: ICC Banking Commission and Transnational Regulation of Letters of Credit’ (2008) 57 Emory Law Journal 1147, 1150.

  26. 26.

    See, e.g. SH Cleveland, ‘Human Rights Sanctions and International Trade: A Theory of Compatibility’ (2002) 5 JIEL 133.

  27. 27.

    R Goodman and D Jinks, ‘International Law and State Socialisation: Conceptual, Empirical, and Normative Challenges’ (2005) 54 Duke Law Journal 983, 995 (discussing the exploitation of human rights norms by private citizens).

  28. 28.

    Levit (n 25).

  29. 29.

    Describing the new generation of empirical work, Dickinson notes that ‘these scholars seem to share a common commitment not to adhere too strictly to any particular method or model, but to try and to understand the complexity and plurality of the forces at work in the world.’ Dickinson (n 22) 552.

  30. 30.

    Franck (n 23) 786.

  31. 31.

    M Hoffman and K Topulos, ‘Tyranny of the Available: Under-Represented Topics, Approaches, and Viewpoints’ (2008) 35 Syracuse Journal of International Law and Commerce175, 195.

  32. 32.

    See OA Hathaway, ‘The New Empiricism in Human Rights: Insights and Implications’ (2004) 98 American Society of International Law Proceedings 206, 207 and Shaffer (n 20) 34.

  33. 33.

    See DJ Bederman, ‘Constructivism, Positivism, and Empiricism in International Law’ (2007) 89 Georgetown Law Journal 469 (criticising Anthony Arendt’s attempt at quantitative analysis); G Verdirame, ‘“The Divided West”: International Lawyers in Europe and America’ (2007) 18 EJIL 553, 561 (lamenting the tendency of these studies to ‘restate the obvious, confirm the well known or repeat the commonsensical’). For a concrete example of the limitations of empirical studies, see JW Yackee, ‘Conceptual Difficulties in the Empirical Study of Bilateral Investment Treaties’ (2008) 33 Brooklyn Journal of International Law 405.

  34. 34.

    Garth (n 22) 944.

  35. 35.

    See Hathaway (n 32) 210 (asserting that empirical research ‘must be linked to concrete policy recommendations’).

  36. 36.

    See, e.g. GC Shaffer, ‘The World Trade Organization Under Challenge: Democracy and the Law and Politics of the WTO’s Treatment of Trade and Environment Matters’ (2001) 25 Harvard Environmental Law Review 1 (discussing the creation of a World Environment Organisation); R Goodman and D Jinks, ‘How To Influence States: Socialization and International Human Rights Law’ (2004) 54 Duke Law Journal 621, 703 (seeking to ‘improv[e] the capacity of global and domestic institutions to harness the process through which human rights cultures are built’).

  37. 37.

    Dickinson sees the creation of a counter-narrative to growing scepticism towards international law as an integral element of this empiricism-based scholarship. Dickinson (n 22) 552.

  38. 38.

    Consider, for example, the sceptical portrayal presented in JL Goldsmith and EA Posner, The Limits of International Law (Oxford, OUP, 2005).

  39. 39.

    M Koskenniemi, From Apology to Utopia: The Structure of International Law (Cambridge, CUP, 2005) 541.

  40. 40.

    See D Kennedy, ‘A New Stream of International Law Scholarship’ (1988) 7 Wisconsin International Law Journal 1.

  41. 41.

    Roman, for example, points to positivists’ ‘failure to question the underpinnings and normative values of their doctrinal formulations [which] renders their laws to be limited, incoherent, anachronistic, and apologistic attempts to be objective in spite of historical occurrences.’ E Roman, ‘Reconstructing Self-Determination: The Role of Critical Theory in the Positivist International Law Paradigm’ (1999) 53 University of Miami Law Review 943, 949.

  42. 42.

    J Ngugi, ‘Making New Wine for Old Wineskins: Can the Reform of International Law Emancipate the Third World in the Age of Globalisation?’ (2002) 8 UC Davis Journal of International Law and Policy 73, 76. See also S Dillon, ‘Opportunism and the WTO: Corporations, Academics and “Member States”’ in International Economic Law (n 20) 57 (underlining how WTO literature dominated by a focus on disputes obscures the social realities of the WTO).

  43. 43.

    Koskenniemi (n 39) 540–541.

  44. 44.

    As Koskenniemi notes, this is theoretically speaking inherently difficult for the critical theorist whose own solutions for countering hidden domination, may be, in itself, the imposition of another form of oppression. ibid 541.

  45. 45.

    Authors who take up this challenge include M Mutua, ‘Critical Race Theory and International Law: The View of an Insider-Outsider’ (2000) 45 Villanova Law Review 841, 851 and CG Gonzalez, ‘Deconstructing the Mythology of Free Trade: Critical Reflections on Comparative Advantage’ (2006) 17 Berkeley La Raza Law Journal 65, 72.

  46. 46.

    See MH Davis and D Neacsu, ‘Legitimacy, Globally: The Incoherence of Free Trade Practice, Global Economics and their Governing Principles of Political Economy’ (2001) 69 University of Missouri, Kansas City Law Review 733, 737 (showing how ‘law legitimises its unstated assumptions … the underlying economic system’).

  47. 47.

    ibid 743–744.

  48. 48.

    UU Ewelukwa, ‘Centuries of Globalisation; Centuries of Exclusion: African Women, Human Rights, and the “New” International Trade Regime’ (2005) 20 Berkeley Journal of Gender, Law and Justice 75, 84.

  49. 49.

    Dillon (n 42) 63.

  50. 50.

    Davis and Neascu (n 46) 764.

  51. 51.

    Orford notes that the increasing value placed upon science is

    premised upon a gendered and racialised hierarchy of knowledge, in which Western science is treated as value-free, objective, impartial and rational, while other forms of knowledge are dismissed as emotive, partial, subjective, and irrational.

    A Orford, ‘Contesting Globalization: A Feminist Perspective on the Future of Human Rights’ (1998) 8 Transnational Law and Contemporary Problems 172, 188.

  52. 52.

    Dillon (n 42) 63 (claiming that scholarship on the WTO offers ‘scarcely a whiff of critical legal studies, feminism or postmodernism’).

  53. 53.

    A Wendt, ‘The Agent-Structure Problem in International Relations Theory’ (1987) 4 International Organization 335, 339.

  54. 54.

    See J Goldsmith and EA Posner, ‘The New International Law Scholarship’ (2006) 34 Georgia Journal of International and Comparative Law 463.

  55. 55.

    ATF Lang, ‘Some Sociological Perspectives on International Institutions and the Trading System’ in International Economic Law (n 20) 73.

  56. 56.

    Wendt (n 53) 339.

  57. 57.

    The term is used by Brunnée and Toope, drawing on the work of Lon Fuller, to describe an alternative view of law ‘not as hierarchical ordering but as an ongoing generative activity, oriented toward the construction of relatively stable patterns of practices’. J Brunnée and SJ Toope, ‘The Changing Nile Basin Regime: Does Law Matter?’ (2000) 43 Harvard International Law Journal 105, 110.

  58. 58.

    Lang (n 55) 73.

  59. 59.

    J Austin, The Providence of Jurisprudence Determined (Indianapolis, Hackett, 1998) 142.

  60. 60.

    See A D’Amato, ‘Is International Law Really “Law”?’ (1985) 79 Northwestern University Law Review1293 (in particular challenging the idea that enforcement is essential to domestic legal systems at 1293–1297); TM Franck, ‘Legitimacy in the International System’ (1988) 82 AJIL 705 (criticising the importance placed on this coercive element).

  61. 61.

    DJ Bederman, ‘Counterintuiting Countermeasures’ (2002) 96 AJIL 817, 818.

  62. 62.

    As Matsushita writes: ‘Unlike domestic courts, the WTO is not equipped with the power to coerce non-complying parties to comply with its requirements by means of imposing fines or imprisonment.’ M Matsushita, ‘The Sutherland Report and its Discussion of Dispute Settlement Reforms’ (2005) 8 JIEL 623, 624.

  63. 63.

    JH Jackson, ‘The Role of International Law in Trade’ (2004) 36 Georgetown Journal of International Law 663, 664.

  64. 64.

    S Charnovitz, ‘The World Trade Organization in 2020’ (2005) 1 Journal of International Law and International Relations 167, 175.

  65. 65.

    C-D Ehlermann and L Ehring, ‘The Authoritative Interpretation under Article IX:2 of the Agreement Establishing the World Trade Organization: Current Law, Practice and Possible Improvements’ (2005) 8 JIEL 803, 809.

  66. 66.

    Comments by P Sutherland, J Sewell, and D Weiner cited in GP Sampson, ‘Is There a Need for Restructuring the Collaboration among the WTO and UN Agencies so as to Harness their Complementarities?’ (2004) 7 JIEL 717, 724.

  67. 67.

    See, e.g. AT Guzman ‘A Compliance-Based Theory of International Law’ (2002) 90 California Law Review1826; ET Swaine, ‘Rational Custom’ (2002) 52 Duke Law Journal 559.

  68. 68.

    See J Talberg, ‘Paths to Compliance: Enforcement, Management, and the European Union’ (2002) 56 International Organization 609, 612.

  69. 69.

    See CR Kelly, ‘Enmeshment as a Theory of Compliance’ (2005) 37 New York University Journal of International Law and Politics 303.

  70. 70.

    J Goldsmith and EA Posner (n 54) 465.

  71. 71.

    It is possible to argue that these norm-based approaches ‘still predominate in the international legal academy in both the United States and Europe’. K Anderson, ‘Remarks by an Idealist on the Realism of the Limits of International Law’ (2006) 34 Georgia Journal of International and Comparative Law 253, 254–255.

  72. 72.

    A Chayes and AH Chayes, The New Sovereignty (Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press, 1995) 113 (emphasis in original).

  73. 73.

    VCLT, Art 26.

  74. 74.

    See Anderson (n 71) 256 (referring to the ‘ghost-in-the-machine character of traditional norm-based law’) and Chayes and Chayes (n 72) 116 (noting that international law ‘has an enormously complex derivation that stubbornly resists specification’).

  75. 75.

    This view is reflected in Henkin’s well-known dictum that ‘almost all nations observe almost all principles of international law and almost all of their obligations almost all of the time’ L Henkin, How Nations Behave: Law and Foreign Policy (London, Pall Mall Press, 1968) 42.

  76. 76.

    Chayes and Chayes argue that this is ‘the practice of states, and of diplomats, international lawyers, political theorists, journalists, and others who think [about state obligations] professionally’. Chayes and Chayes (n 72) 118.

  77. 77.

    FV Kratochwil, Rules, Norms, and Decisions (Cambridge, CUP, 1989) 200–205.

  78. 78.

    M Finnemore, ‘Are Legal Norms Distinctive?’ (2000) 32 New York University Journal of International Law and Politics 699, 704.

  79. 79.

    See J Klabbers, ‘The Relative Autonomy of International Law or the Forgotten Politics of Interdisciplinarity’ (2005) 1 Journal of International Law and International Relations 35, 42 (recommending that lawyers ‘must cherish and preserve the relative autonomy of the law, for a law that has lost its autonomy ceases to be law’); P Allott, ‘The International Lawyer in Government Service: Ontology and Deontology’ (2005) 23 Wisconsin International Law Journal 13, 22 (describing lawyers as belonging to ‘a surreptitious priesthood [with] an ideal allegiance, as servants of law’).

  80. 80.

    JO McGinnis and ML Movsesian, ‘The World Trade Constitution’ (2000) 114 Harvard Law Review 511, 569.

  81. 81.

    See TM Franck, The Power of Legitimacy Among Nations (New York, OUP, 1990) Chap. 1.

  82. 82.

    Chayes and Chayes (n 72) Chap. 6.

  83. 83.

    A Lang, ‘Re-thinking Trade and Human Rights’ (2007) 15 Tulane Journal of International and Comparative Law335, 349.

  84. 84.

    J Alvarez, ‘How Not to Link: Institutional Conundrums of an Expanded Trade Regime’ (2001) 7 Widener Law Symposium Journal 1.

  85. 85.

    M Finnemore and SJ Toope, ‘Alternatives to “Legalisation”: Richer Views of Law and Politics’ (2001) 55 International Organization 743, 745.

  86. 86.

    AC Arend, ‘Do Legal Rules Matter? International Law and International Politics’ (1998) 38 VJIL 107, 130–133.

  87. 87.

    See Brunnée and Toope (n 85) 68 (describing law as ‘a purposive enterprise’); Lang (n 55) 87 (characterising law as ‘a venue for the production and exchange of innovative policy learning’).

  88. 88.

    See Berman’s discussion of sociolegal scholarship which highlights how ‘legal categories become reflected in ordinary discourse and thought.’ PS Berman, ‘Seeing beyond the Limits of International Law’ (2006) 84 Texas Law Review 1265, 1281.

  89. 89.

    To explain these processes, the following sections draw on the work of both international-relations and international-law scholars.

  90. 90.

    See AI Johnston, ‘Treating International Institutions as Social Environments’ (2001) 45 International Studies Quarterly 487.

  91. 91.

    ibid 469–498.

  92. 92.

    T Risse, ‘“Let’s Argue!”: Communicative Action in World Politics’ (2000) 54 International Organization 1, 32.

  93. 93.

    Goodman and Jinks (n 36) 643.

  94. 94.

    M Finnemore, ‘International Norm Dynamics and Political Change’ (1998) 52 International Organization 887, 903.

  95. 95.

    HH Koh, ‘Transnational Legal Process’ (1996) 75 Nebraska Law Review 181, 204. For a concrete example of the shaming process, see Moravcsik’s review of the implementation of human rights in Europe. A Moravcsik, ‘Explaining International Human Rights Regimes: Liberal Theory and Western Europe’ (1995) 1 European Journal of International Relations 157, 161.

  96. 96.

    Chayes and Chayes consider persuasion to be the more preponderant of these two processes, but note that ‘if the party consistently fails to respond, the possibility of diffuse manifestations of disapproval or pressures from other actors in the regime is present in the background.’ Chayes and Chayes (n 72) 26.

  97. 97.

    Wendt (n 53) 399.

  98. 98.

    JG Ruggie, ‘What Makes the World Hang Together? Neo-Utilitarianism and the Social Constructivist Challenge’ (1998) 52 International Organization 855, 869.

  99. 99.

    JW Legro, ‘Which Norms Matter? Revisiting the “Failure” of Internationalism’ (1997) 51 International Organization 31, 33.

  100. 100.

    See A Alkolby, ‘Theories of Compliance with International Law and the Challenge of Cultural Difference’ (2008) 4 Journal of International Law and International Relations 151, 194; Johnston (n 90) 494.

  101. 101.

    B Kingsbury, ‘The Concept of Compliance as a Function of Competing Conceptions of International Law’ (1998) 19 Michigan Journal of International Law 345, 359.

  102. 102.

    It is possible for the outcome of dispute-settlement decisions to be evaluated simply according to the authors’ particular view of the issue at hand. A critic of biotechnology, for example, may lament the panel’s decision in EC—Biotech on the illegitimacy of EU Member State safeguard measures.

  103. 103.

    Koskenniemi describes this expectation as ‘the persisting intuition that legal argument somehow follows a logic which is external to lawyers’ preferences or those of their social group’. Koskenniemi (n 39) 67.

  104. 104.

    ibid 60.

  105. 105.

    A good example of this inherent tension can be seen in Croley and Jackson’s discussion of the common plea for WTO dispute-settlement bodies to take a more deferential approach towards national policy choices:

    Standing alone, the argument that deferential review is necessary to protect authorities’ national sovereignty fails to acknowledge that some balance between authorities’ interest in protecting their sovereignty, on the one side, and the broader interest in realising the gains of international coordination, on the other, must be struck. The argument proves too much, in other words, as it unwittingly challenges the very rationale of the GATT/WTO itself.

    SP Croley and JH Jackson, ‘WTO Dispute Procedures, Standard of Review, and Deference to National Governments’ (1996) 90 AJIL 193, 212.

  106. 106.

    Koskenniemi (n 39) 59.

  107. 107.

    While the notion of sovereignty is contested, in the context of work on the WTO the term is widely understood to reflect interest in the ‘allocation of power’. See, e.g. JH Jackson, ‘The Great 1994 Sovereignty Debate: United States Acceptance and Implementation of the Uruguay Round Results’ (1997) 36 Columbia Journal of Transnational Law 157; K Raustiala, ‘Rethinking the Sovereignty Debate in International Economic Law’ (2003) 6 JIEL 841; D Saroshi, ‘Sovereignty, Economic Autonomy, United States, and the International Trading System: Representations of the Relationship’ (2004) 15 EJIL 651.

  108. 108.

    See M Presley, ‘Sovereignty and Relegation Issues regarding US Commitment to the World Trade Organisation’s Dispute Settlement Process’ (1998) 8 Journal of Transnational Law and Policy 173, 187–188 (drawing this conclusion from the US—Gasoline case).

  109. 109.

    JP Trachtman, ‘Regulatory Jurisdiction and the WTO’ (2007a) 10 JIEL 631, 632.

  110. 110.

    K Raustiala, ‘Sovereignty and Multilateralism’ (2000) 1 Chicago Journal of International Law 401, 410 (referring to this phenomenon, in no way unique to the WTO, as ‘generativity’).

  111. 111.

    Barfield considers this activism to be a side-effect of the cumbersome law-making capacities of the WTO. C Barfield, ‘Free Trade, Sovereignty, Democracy: The Future of the World Trade Organisation’ (2001) 2 Chicago Journal of International Law 403, 408. For Trachtman, it is simply an intrinsic and important feature of dispute resolution. JP Trachtman, ‘The Domain of WTO Dispute Resolution’ (1999) 40 Harvard International Law Journal333, 336.

  112. 112.

    Regardless of the legal limitations on the Appellate Body’s power in this respect, politically speaking it remains highly sensitive to the risks in developing potentially divisive jurisprudence. See RH Steinberg, ‘Judicial Lawmaking at the WTO: Discursive, Constitutional, and Political Constraints’ (2004) 98 AJIL 247, 274.

  113. 113.

    See J Atik, ‘Democratising the WTO’ (2001) 33 George Washington International Law Review 451, 467 (claiming ‘positive law within the WTO emerges indirectly’).

  114. 114.

    R Trimble, ‘Globalisation, International Institutions, and the Erosion of National Sovereignty and Democracy’ (1997) 95 Michigan Law Review 1944, 1944–1945.

  115. 115.

    HV Morais, ‘The Quest for International Standards: Global Governance Versus Sovereignty’ (2002) 50 University of Kansas Law Review 779, 806.

  116. 116.

    See, e.g. PN Nichols, ‘Trade without Values’ (1996) 90 Northwestern University Law Review658, 660; P Ala’i, ‘A Human Rights Critique of the WTO: Some Preliminary Observations’ (2001) 33 George Washington International Law Review 537, 540.

  117. 117.

    S Dillon, ‘A Farewell to “Linkage”: International Trade Law and Global Sustainability Indicators’ (2002) 55 Rutgers Law Review 87, 90.

  118. 118.

    See C Summers, ‘The Battle in Seattle: Free Trade, Labour Rights, and Societal Values’ (2001) 22 University of Pennsylvania Journal of International Economic L aw 61, 80; FJ Garcia, ‘Building a Just Trade Order for a New Millennium’ (2001) 33 George Washington International Law Review 1015, 1058.

  119. 119.

    See Y Bonzon, ‘Institutionalizing Public Participation in WTO Decision Making: Some Conceptual Hurdles and Avenues’ (2008) 11 JIEL 751, 760 (noting that concerns within the WTO about public participation have been largely oriented towards improving the body’s image).

  120. 120.

    See GR Shell, ‘The Trade Stakeholders Model and Participation by Nonstate Parties in the World Trade Organisation’ (2004) 25 University of Pennsylvania Journal of International Economic Law 703, 721; P Ala’i, ‘Free Trade or Sustainable Development? An Analysis of the WTO Appellate Body’s Shift to a More Balanced Approach to Trade Liberalisation’ (1999) 14 American University International Law Review 1129.

  121. 121.

    JP Kelly, ‘The WTO and Global Governance: The Case for Contractual Treaty Regimes’ (2001) 7 Widener Law Symposium Journal 109, 112–113.

  122. 122.

    See Japan—Taxes on Alcoholic Beverages, Appellate Body Report (adopted 4 October 1996) WT/DS8/AB/R, WT/DS10/AB/R, WT/DS11/AB/R, para 14 (describing the WTO Agreement as ‘the international equivalent of a contract’). See also JO Nzelibe, ‘Interest Groups, Power Politics, and the Risks of WTO Mission Creep’ (2004) 28 Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy 89; JP Trachtman, ‘The WTO Cathedral’ (2007b) 43 Stanford Journal of International Law 127, 145.

  123. 123.

    Kelly (n 121) 117.

  124. 124.

    See K Bagwell, PC Mavroidis and RW Staiger, ‘It’s a Question of Market Access’ (2002) 96 AJIL 56; J Pauwelyn, ‘New Trade Politics for the 21st Century’ (2008) 11 JIEL 559, 599.

  125. 125.

    J Pauwelyn, ‘A Typology of Multilateral Treaty Obligations: Are WTO Obligations Bilateral or Collective in Nature?’ (2003) 14 EJIL 907, 931.

  126. 126.

    See DP Steger, ‘The Culture of the WTO: Why it Needs to Change’ (2007) 10 JIEL 483, 491 (describing the idea that the WTO is a contract as a ‘myth’).

  127. 127.

    See US—Standards for Reformulated Conventional Gasoline, Appellate Body Report (adopted 29 April 1996) WT/DS2/AB/R, para 46 (famously holding that WTO law cannot be considered in ‘clinical isolation’ of public international law).

  128. 128.

    Charnovitz acknowledges this, and notes that in the analysis of the WTO, such premises often remain unarticulated. He therefore draws up a list of potential alternative ‘purposes’—harmonisation, neutralising powerful domestic actors and risk reduction among others—some of which would fall, under the scheme outlined here, under the ascending perspective. S Charnovitz, ‘Triangulating The World Trade Organization’ (2002) 96 AJIL 28, 48.

  129. 129.

    GATT Arts I and III respectively provide that states must not treat like products from different WTO Members in a different way and not impose burdens on imported products in excess of those on domestic ones. See V Heiskanen, ‘The Regulatory Philosophy of International Trade Law’ (2004) 38 JWT 1 (describing non-discrimination as GATT’s ‘underlying regulatory philosophy’).

  130. 130.

    J Croome, Reshaping the World Trading System: A History of the Uruguay Round (Geneva, WTO Secretariat, 1995) 236. See also JP Trachtman (n 109) 632.

  131. 131.

    SPS Agreement Arts 2.3 and 5.5.

  132. 132.

    See DM Driesen, ‘What Is Free-Trade?: The Real Issue Lurking behind the Trade and Environment Debate’ (2001) 41 VJIL 279, 291; PM Gerhart, ‘Slow Transformations: The WTO as a Distributive Organization’ (2002) 17 American University International Law Review 1045, 1048 (characterising the WTO as a body primarily striving for economic efficiency).

  133. 133.

    Under SPS Agreement Art 5.6, WTO Members must ensure that measures are ‘not more trade-restrictive than required’ to achieve the Member’s chosen level of protection, permitting other states to challenge domestic policy on the basis that they are sub-optimal in trading terms. The Appellate Body’s finding in the Hormones decision that the EU’s measures were illegal while not discriminatory, would also seem to suggest the SPS Agreement’s pursuit of a more far-reaching free trade agenda. EC—Measures concerning Meat and Meat Products (Hormones), Appellate Body Report (adopted 16 January 1998) WT/DS26/AB/R, WT/DS48/AB/R, para 246.

  134. 134.

    See Charnovitz (n 128) 34 (pointing to the ‘rampant inefficiency’ created by permitted maintenance of tariffs, antidumping duties and quotas).

  135. 135.

    DH Regan, ‘What Are Trade Agreements For?—Two Conflicting Stories Told by Economists, with a Lesson for Lawyers’ (2006) 9 JIEL 951, 968 (arguing that the SPS regime is a ‘natural extension of the protectionism story’).

  136. 136.

    D Kalderimis, ‘Problems of WTO Harmonisation and the Virtues of Shields over Swords’ (2004) 13 Minnesota Journal of Global Trade 305, 320.

  137. 137.

    S Ostry cited in Barfield (n 111) 406.

  138. 138.

    Members are only expected to ‘base’ measures on international standards. SPS Agreement Art 3.1.

  139. 139.

    SPS Agreement Art 3.3.

  140. 140.

    Trachtman (n 109) 649.

  141. 141.

    Steger (n 126) 486.

  142. 142.

    See, e.g. E-U Petersmann, ‘Human Rights and International Economic Law in the 21st Century’ (2001) 4 JIEL 3, 27 (arguing that protectionist WTO rules may infringe the ‘human rights interests of consumers in maximum equal liberty and open markets’).

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Downes, C. (2014). Evaluating the Impact of International Law: A Taxonomy of Analytical Choices. In: The Impact of WTO SPS Law on EU Food Regulations. Studies in European Economic Law and Regulation, vol 2. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-04373-9_2

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