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Global Law Working Papers
2006 Series
GLWP
03/06
Author
Joanne Scott
Professor of European Law
University College London
Title
"Cooperative Regulation in the WTO: The SPS Committee"
Abstract
The strengthening of the WTO dispute settlement system has created a bias in WTO law in favour of courts. It has allowed international lawyers to emulate their domestic counterparts in their fixation on case law. In much academic discussion, panel and AB reports are presented as entirely occupying the field of WTO law. The case law is important, and the dispute settlement system innovative and interesting. But, as this chapter will show, there is more to WTO law than case law, and there is more to the globalization of food safety regulation than inter-state confrontation in formal disputes. The point here is not merely to identify the institutional locus of the "real action." It is rather that in acknowledging the existence of an institutional framework for cooperation outside of dispute settlement, a picture of WTO law emerges which unsettles dominant understandings, and alters the terrain on which we base our analysis and conclusions. The picture which emerges challenges the dominant conception of the WTO as court-centric (as opposed to polycentric), hierarchical (as opposed to participatory), and backwards looking to Member State settled intentions (rather than forwards looking in providing spaces for the continuous elaboration of the standards and principles laid down). The account offered is descriptively more accurate than the dominant court-centric approach, and normatively richer and more challenging.
Contact the Author
Joanne.Scott@ucl.ac.uk
