Law Commons^™

Gatt Membership In A Changing World Order: Taiwan, China, And The Former Soviet Republics, Lori Fisler Damrosch

Faculty Scholarship

My introduction to questions of GATT membership came in 1979 when, as an attorney in the U.S. Department of State, I was immersed in a series of issues concerning trade relations with the People's Republic of China ("China" or "PRC") and Taiwan ("Republic of China" or "ROC"). I kept hearing about the "Chinese seat" in the GATT as if it were some piece of furniture waiting to be taken out of storage and put back in the dining room. The image of a chair is hardly an apt way of visualizing the extraordinarily complex network of legal relationships that exists …