Majlessi, Shervin --- "From Realpolitik of International Trade to the Geneva Consensus" [2009] ELECD 556; in Joseph, Sarah; Kinley, David; Waincymer, Jeff (eds), "The World Trade Organization and Human Rights" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2009)

Book Title: The World Trade Organization and Human Rights

Editor(s): Joseph, Sarah; Kinley, David; Waincymer, Jeff

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

ISBN (hard cover): 9781847206619

Section: Chapter 14

Section Title: From Realpolitik of International Trade to the Geneva Consensus

Author(s): Majlessi, Shervin

Number of pages: 12

Extract:

14. From realpolitik of international trade
to the Geneva Consensus
Shervin Majlessi1

1. INTRODUCTION
This chapter comprises a commentary on presentations delivered during the
Monash/Sydney Universities' Conference on The World Trade Organisation
and Human Rights: Interdisciplinary Perspectives upon which the chapters in
this collection are based. In the spirit of the interdisciplinary presentations
during the conference this comment focuses on developments in the area of
GATT/WTO law, from realpolitik of international trade to an institutionalist
one, and its connection with human rights law. The commentary is in part a
variation of the fragmentation narrative presented in Andrew Lang's chapter,2
according to which the evolution of theory and practice of the discipline of
GATT/WTO law, at least until very recently, happened outside what should
have been its natural course (that is, in the context of an international
economic law or international trade law,3 which in turn would be a branch of
international law).
I propose, therefore, that a different approach is needed to address the
conflict between trade and human rights. It is submitted that Pascal Lamy's
proposed Geneva Consensus creates some space for that different approach
based on a different theory of international economic relations.4

1 The views expressed herein are those of the author, and cannot be attributed
to the United Nations.
2 See Chapter 7.
3 Already the different names of this field of law demonstrate some of the
confusion in study of the subject which goes beyond mere questions ...