Accession as Dialogue: Epistemic Communities and the World Trade Organization

Abstract

AbstractAccession to the World Trade Organization (WTO) is viewed as a major step in the development of a state, and the commitments made by acceding states are often interpreted as a symbolic commitment to international economic and political community. However, as a subject of scholarship, WTO accession is under-theorized – there has been no sustained academic attempt to build a theory that accounts for the complexity of the accession process. Traditional, positivist approaches can point to increasingly onerous terms of accession, but fail to probe past Article XII's one-dimensional concept of ‘the acceding state’ negotiating with ‘the WTO’. This perspective dislocates the accession process from the broader political, economic, and legal reforms that involve both state and non-state actors. This article examines the role of these actors as epistemic communities, and argues that these epistemic communities engage in a series of dialogues about the nature of law and the legal system in the acceding state.