The Experimental Evolution of Trade Law

Abstract

Abstract This chapter examines the once-dominant trade law narrative, grievances that have arisen under it, and prospects for the future. It argues that trade law and its institutions continue to evolve and that experimentation in trade law has not reached its end. The chapter presents three broad areas where trade law is unsettled: in the relationship between domestic and international tools; in the place and space for wealth redistribution; and in the shape of an institutional framework that can itself be flexible and establishment view of the trade rule of law and how it has come under challenge. What some see as a “fraying” of an ideal structure for managing trade law and policy, the chapter identifies as another turn in trade law’s experimentation. Second, the chapter analyzes four institutional challenges that arise from this turn, although there are others. It considers the work of the World Trade Organization (WTO) dispute settlement system, the WTO’s other institutional features, the invocation of national security as a justification to depart from the establishment view, and trade agreements. Finally, the chapter concludes by looking to the future, imagining the possibilities for institutional change and a new conception of the trade rule of law going forward.