Abstract:
How
can negotiations be conducted to promote the legitimacy of international
institutions such as the World Trade Organization (WTO)? Can negotiation
procedures be designed so as to strengthen the WTO as an institution
and the agreements it concludes? One reason for which the legitimacy
of the organization is being questioned is its decision-making-especially
negotiation- procedures. These have contributed significantly to
recent setbacks in WTO talks. Yet proposals for procedural reform
have not been subject to much discussion or review, in particular
with no regard to content which may boost legitimacy. Justice and
other values associated with legitimacy have generally not been addressed
by trade experts, and conceptual tools for identifying what practical
form their inclusion could take are lacking.
This article reviews a variety of proposals, formal and informal,
for reforming the WTO's negotiation procedures. It develops an
approach to procedural justice which is used to identify the justice
content in these proposals, based on four main principles. Drawing
on this analysis, the article concludes by highlighting promising
elements of reform. In so doing, it brings research literature
on justice and negotiation to bear on current debates over the
legitimacy deficit in international institutions, using the WTO
as a significant case. More practically, the article helps to identify
what more legitimate negotiation procedures may mean and require,
and how their justice content may be assessed and increased.
