Emerging Powers and International Trade Law

Abstract

This chapter explores approaches of emerging powers to international trade law and is structured in a comparable way to Chap. 5. The chapter starts with a brief description of emerging powers’ earlier involvement—in some cases non-involvement—in the world trade order throughout the GATT years (1948–1994). This first part (A.) asks whether Brazil, China, India, and South Africa can be characterized as rule-takers or rule-makers during that period. The second part (B.) analyses whether their rise in economic power has led to an increased importance of emerging powers within the international trade order and its law-making processes. In its third and main part (C.) the chapter examines several examples of how emerging powers have sought to make WTO agreements more just according to our three-dimensional human rights approach and whether they succeeded.