Claims for a New Social and Legal Structure in the World Trade Organization and the Brazilian Experience
22 Pages Posted: 6 Oct 2009
Date Written: October 5, 2005
Abstract
The work departs from the assumption that some new challenges instigated by the globalization process affected the multilateral trade system, especially the World Trade Organization (WTO) regulation. Taking into account the complexity of relations among different actors in the international system, the focus of the analysis is the claims for a new social and legal structure in the WTO. In other words, on the claims for institutional structures recognizing new personalities and new sources of law in the multilateral trade system. The analysis is developed under the perspective of the sociology of law. The main hypothesis is that if there are new actors in intergovernmental forum, like the WTO, they end up instigating other perceptions of space and time when regulating the system.In order to confirm this hypothesis, in the first part of the work, there is an exam of how far some non-state actors intends to achieve new forms of participation in the WTO, and how much that forms may possibly transform the social and legal structure of the organization. In a second part of the work, the same hypothesis is confirmed in a reference to Brazilian stakeholders in the trade foreign policy of the country.
Keywords: WTO, non-state actors, participation, global governance
JEL Classification: K33
Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation