Book Review: Michael Fakhri, Sugar and the Making of International Trade Law (2014)

Abstract

This piece reviews the book Sugar and the Making of International Trade Law by Michael Fakhri (Cambridge, New York: Cambridge University Press, 2014). The main thesis of Michael Fakhri, a professor of international trade and food law at the University of Oregon, is that international law fundamentally contributed in the transformation of a simple plant into a global product. With a fine use of history, he explores the role of three international treaties in the expansion of sugar industrial interests: the 1902 Brussels Convention and two international commodity agreements — the 1937 and 1977 International Sugar Agreements (ISAs). Each case study is revealing in and of itself, but combined the three complement each other to tell a compelling narrative of the creation of a modern trading system as a tale of industrial-versus-agricultural interests and North-versus-South perspectives. It leaves us with a better appreciation of trade law’s history beyond the conventional account told around the World Trade Organization (WTO), a perspective that tends to ignore "that modern trade law has its origins at the end of the nineteenth century within the context of imperialism — a context most relevant to developing countries."

Keywords: international trade law history, sugar, Brussels Convention, International Sugar Agreements, World Trade Organization