Introduction

Abstract

Law serves a wide range of people, institutions, and sectors in pluralist society: rich and poor, urban and rural, agriculture, manufacturing, and services with all its divergent facets and particularities. Equality before the law and equal treatment are fundamental pillars of the rule of law. Coherence and consistency form the basis of output legitimacy. At the same time, factual difference calls for different treatment in law. The challenge to do justice to all in society remains a never-ending task and aspiration. The same holds true for a pluralist world in terms of economics and trade relations. Equal treatment and differential treatment characterize the law of the World Trade Organization (WTO). Built over a period of fifty years, the body of General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) law further expanded after the Uruguay Round. The General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) and Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) Agreements added two new pillars under a new roof. These pillars respond to the challenges of equal treatment in fundamentally different ways. On the one hand, the GATS Agreement offers ample flexibility. It responds to the philosophy of progressive liberalization. On the other hand, the TRIPS Agreement provides for minimal and uniform legal rules. It responds to the philosophy of harmonization and standardization (although these terms are carefully omitted in official terminology). Additional agreements relating to the GATT combine the two philosophies in manifold ways. A complex body of law entailing constitutional principles, limitations to domestic regulation, and prescriptive rules emerged. All the instruments, roughly including 18 agreements, six understandings, one protocol, and numerous country-specific schedules, decisions, and declarations operate, with the exceptions of four plurilateral agreements, under the single undertaking of the Uruguay Round Agreements. They are equally binding upon all Members, irrespective of levels of trade flows and of social and economic development. Partly, they provide uniform principles and rules; partly, they consist of individualized commitments and a host of provisions offering special and differential treatment to developing countries.