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Journal of International Economic Law Advance Access originally published online on November 3, 2006
Journal of International Economic Law 2006 9(4):823-835; doi:10.1093/jiel/jgl032
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Journal of International Economic Law Vol. 9 No. 4 © Oxford University Press 2006, all rights reserved

Rulemaking Amidst Growing Diversity: A Club-of-Clubs Approach to WTO Reform and New Issue Selection

Robert Z. Lawrence*

* Albert L. Williams Professor of International Trade and Investment, John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University, and Senior Fellow, Institute for International Economics. E-mail: robert_lawrence{at}harvard.edu.


  Abstract

The diverse nature of World Trade Organization (WTO) membership makes it highly unlikely that members will all be willing and able to sign on to the full range of agreements that many members might find desirable. The paper proposes an approach in which the WTO would supplement its core agreements with additional ‘clubs’ to which only some members would subscribe. The approach is a compromise in which diversity can co-exist with a more extensive set of commitments for willing members. The paper provides suggestions for how the clubs would be selected and how they would operate. Clubs would be chosen where they could help promote the WTO’s central missions: lowering barriers to trade, reducing the discriminatory effects of domestic policies, and enhancing economic development through trade. All WTO members would participate in negotiating club rules, but members would be free not to join. Clubs would use the Dispute Settlement Understanding (DSU) to deal with disputes, but suspension of concessions in the event of violations would be confined to the provisions of the same club in which the violation occurred.


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