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Consensus Decision-Making And Legislative Inertia At The Wto: Can International Law Help?, Americo B. Zampetti, Patrick Low, Petros C. Mavroidis
Consensus Decision-Making And Legislative Inertia At The Wto: Can International Law Help?, Americo B. Zampetti, Patrick Low, Petros C. Mavroidis
Faculty Scholarship
The recent emergence of Joint Statement Initiatives (JSIs) – that is, negotiating initiatives among a subset of the World Trade Organization (WTO) membership – has reignited the debate over law-making in the WTO. As things stand, the WTO operates on the basis of a widespread expectation that consensus needs to be achieved for any decision to be taken. Agreements that produce rights and obligations only among a subset of the membership (‘plurilaterals’, or Annex 4 agreements) are also subject to the consensus rule and thus remain exceptional. Are JSIs the first move towards redressing the current equilibrium in favour of …