"International Trade and the Conclusions of the Uruguay Round: A Liberal Critique"

Sally, Razeen. (1995) "International Trade and the Conclusions of the Uruguay Round: A Liberal Critique". In: UNSPECIFIED, Charleston, South Carolina. (Unpublished)

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Abstract

After looking at the political compromises embodied in the GATT, it is argued that the Uruguay Round represents continuity, not radical break, with major features of post-war trade rule-making: like the original GATT, it is a "mixed systems" compromise between national policy discretion and multilateral constraints, with the balance tipping in favour of the former. The final section of the discussion presents and contrasts three liberal perspectives on international economic order to shed further light on the contemporary trading system, including the Uruguay Round agreements. It is argued that a "liberalism from above", in political science-based liberal institutionalism and in legal-economic rule-making approaches, would in some respects differ from a "liberalism from below", containing German neoliberal and Hayekian perspectives in political economy and law. These differences touch on the relative importance of national and international levels of policy- and rule-making, and the interaction between the two levels.

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