Regulating agriculture in the WTO

Abstract

AbstractThis article argues there is value in exploring the resonance between the regulation of international agricultural trade as a specific topic and the general notion of international trade regulation in the World Trade Organisation (WTO). It explores particular problems to illuminate more general concerns. In this ascendant way of looking at things, certain aspects of agricultural trade regulation have direct resonance for other areas covered by the WTO agreements. We might see these additional dimensions as addressing a different series of questions: the nature of agreement and the different ways in which agreement can manifest itself. The two dimensions are the nature of international agricultural trade as a polycentric problem and the way accepted concepts and categories influence how we see problems in international agricultural trade. Polycentrism goes to the nature of the stability of the Agreement on Agriculture, whereas the question of concepts and categories concerns the way in which we represent the problem as coherent to ourselves.