THE ROLE OF WORLD TRADE ORGANIZATION (WTO) IN SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT OF AFRICA UNDER INTERNATIONAL TRADE LAW.

Abstract

International trade law forms an influential (due to threat of trade sanctions) normative tier above domestic law in shaping the process of economic globalization. Its main components are multilateral agreements such as the World Trade Organization’s General Agreement on Trade in Services and Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights. Increasingly important are bilateral trade agreements. Although often termed free trade agreements, their inclusion of pro-monopolistic intellectual property components and provisions designed to alter the health systems of less important trading partners suggests a preferential strategic purpose favoring multinational corporate interests, with implications for applied ethics due to their limited democratic input and lack of engagement with bioethical and human rights norms.1 One of the main problem areas for the identification and protection of global public goods has been their (often adverse) interaction with international trade law. Of course, a fair, welfare-promoting international trade regime that contains trade disputation may be seen as a global public good in itself, particularly if that facilitates the global dispersal of products and services that have community benefit.2 The Latin term lex mercatoria denotes transnational self-regulation among merchants at least as early as the Middle Ages. Legal scholars disagree about whether historical lex mercatoria constituted a legal system. Nowadays, transnational private governance is practiced and expanded. Modern formulating agencies like International Institute for the Unification of Private Law and UN Commission on International Trade Law work out systematic restatements, principles, and internationally standardized trade terms to further worldwide commercial transactions. Governmental and nongovernmental organizations formulate the socalled soft law, that is, guidelines and best practices, to bring about international norms in many areas where no global legislation is available. Historically and currently, parties in international business disputes avoid state courts and prefer arbitration. Arbitration tribunals apply lex mercatoria, the theoretical dispute about the qualification of the rules as law notwithstanding. In a global context, the private, self-governing Lex mercatoria approach is indispensable. Legal scholars and social scientists today are exploring the legitimacy of rules developed by private organizations and the interplay of law and private ordering.