International Law in a Globalized World: Voices from Asia

Since the World Trade Organisation is a rule-based international organization and members are primarily sovereign states, the law of the WTO is a specific type of international law. Despite its prominence, the WTO is poorly understood. Most of the people who have profound interest in the WTO are not lawyers. They are mainly economists, political scientists and members of the public. For them, it is difficult to understand how the WTO, an organisation overseeing international trade, is subject to Public International Law and how the law of the WTO can have effect on them who are subject to the national laws of a particular sovereign state. The present paper is an attempt to answer these questions. It sees the WTO from international law perspective. As the WTO agreements are treaties, the law of the WTO is nothing but international law. The paper analyses briefly the functioning of the WTO Agreements, the WTO dispute settlement mechanism, the sources of the WTO law, and how the WTO law is applied in the domestic sphere of Member States. The papers concludes with suggestions for improvement.