2022/05/13 by Judith Goldstein · 1 citation
Economics, Econometrics and Finance · Social Sciences · #Global trade and economics #World Trade Organization Law #International Development and Aid
paper · doi:10.1093/isr/viac019
openalex publication_date 2022/05/13 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/05/21
Abstract Democratic governance, liberal values, and the open trading regime are facing interconnected existential challenges. For most of the post-WWII period, they were “legs to the same stool.” Today, the connections among the three have frayed, and this has implications for the future of the liberal international economic order. While the trade regime successfully incorporated smaller autocratic states, the rise of China and increasing tension among signatories to the WTO has challenged the rule-based trading system. This essay argues that even with these divisions among the memberships, all trading nations, including China, need the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT)/WTO. Trade requires market predictability; exporters and their home governments require some means to adjudicate conflict. The GATT/WTO remains the best, and perhaps the only, organization that can facilitate such coordination and finesse the changing nature of the international system to assure an open world economy.