Table of Contents for: Theories and Practices of Compliance with WTO Law

Abstract

Compliance is one of the key concepts in contemporary academic discourse in social sciences although it has so far remained at the margin of international legal scholarship, let alone in the context of the public international law of trade. Beyond the works of some social scientists which use realist theories, institutionalist theories and normative theories in the study of international relations, it is difficult to find any comprehensive work by international trade lawyers that uses some relevant social science theories to explain the rights and obligations of WTO Members. While there is currently an avalanche of academic work on WTO obligations and on the jurisprudential progressivism of the celebrated WTO disputes settlement regime, trade lawyers have avoided dealing/dealt insufficiently with the causal question ‘why WTO Members abide by their international trade law obligations’. This failure to deal with compliance is troubling because it undermines the very foundation of international trade law. To the extent that we can theorise using different social science theories to provide an answer to the question as to why nation-States comply/not comply with their international trade law obligations, we will be able to understand the function of the WTO as a legal system. This, as a consequence, will lead us to relevant propositions on ascertaining different perspectives on remedies against non-compliance with trade rules. This is precisely what this book intends to do.