No International Organization is an Island . . . the WTO’s Relationship with the WIPO: A Model for the Governance of Trade Linkage Areas?

Abstract

Trade has fuzzy boundaries where it overlaps with many different fields – be it the environment, intellectual property, or other. The World Trade Organization (WTO) is thus required to interact with other international institutions in order to come to an arrangement for dealing with these ‘trade and ?’ linkage areas. The relationship between the WTO and the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) could in many respects serve as a model. The picture that emerges when the various forms of interaction of the two organizations are assessed is that they benefit most from complementarity. Thus, for example, the WIPO offers detailed intellectual property rules, whilst the WTO supplements this with effective dispute settlement. This advantage may largely be due to the fact that the WTO has incorporated many of the WIPO rules into its own law. One of the recommendations put forward here is for other ‘trade and ?’ spheres to do the same. On the other hand, the analysis highlights a number of problems that occur when two institutions cross paths. One such difficulty is a potential conflict of law. To help to resolve it, the WTO dispute settlement system should give greater consideration to the provisions of non-WTO law. Some hope for this is given in the US-Copyright case, but it is questioned whether this still holds in view of more recent caselaw. The interplay between the WTO and the WIPO thus forms the basis for a number of recommendations for better governance of trade linkage areas.