Picciotto, S The WTO as a Node of Global Governance

2 The WTO acts in a number of ways as a global governance node, a point of intersection of a variety of regulatory networks. The interaction of WTO rules with human rights norms is both another example of such normative interactions, as well as raising more general questions about the relationship of the discourses and practices of economic regulation and those of human rights. The article examines first the procedural and institutional question of the possible inclusion of human rights principles explicitly within the WTO framework; secondly, the more substantive question of the relationship between the perspectives and discourses of trade and human rights and whether and how they could be reconciled, discussed in the context of two salient examples, medicine and food. In conclusion, it returns to the institutional issues by discussing the strategic aspects of the trade-human rights debates in the context of the role of the WTO as a node of global governance, and the critiques and challenges to it. Keywords