Making General Exceptions: The Spell of Precedents in Developing Article XX GATT into Standards for Domestic Regulatory Policy

Abstract

Judicial lawmaking in the GATT/WTO context has for some time drawn considerable attention. Some are inclined to show a sense of existentialist anxiety in view of the fact that legal practice does not neatly live up to the orthodox doctrinal order of things. Others see judicial lawmaking as (theoretically or practically) inevitable and tend to readily embrace it as a way of overcoming defunct political processes. Whatever its normative appraisal, as a matter of fact adjudicatory practice has developed some of trade law's cardinal norms. The rise and increasing sophistication of adjudication in the GATT/WTO context has also gone hand in hand with a surge of authority on the part of adjudicators and a larger overall detachment of the law from politico-legislative politics.