Law Commons^™

Special and differential treatment of developing countries is one of the main tools that the General Agreement on Tariff and Trade (GATT) and the World Trade Organisation (WTO) systems have used in the bid to integrate developing countries better into the international trade system. The adequacy and implications of using special and differential treatment as such a tool for integration is a central theme of enquiry in this book. The book presents an overview of the conceptual basis for granting special and differential treatment to developing countries and the development of the concept in the GATT/WTO. It also presents a …

The notion that the existence of a State must not be based on, inter alia, the military or economic power it wields to assure its existence and prevent interference from other states, has evolved over the centuries and has become a foundational provision in the United Nations Charter. States are deemed equal just by their status as states under international law. Sovereign equality is therefore juridical in nature in that, all states are equal under international law in spite of asymmetries of inequality in areas like military power, geographical and population size, levels of industrialisation and economic development. Transposing this …