Regulatory Transparency, Developing Countries, and the WTO', World Trade Review 2 (2) Wolfe, Robert. (forthcoming) 'Where’s the Beef? Law, Institutions and the Canada-U.S. Border

using funds provided by the Law Commission of Canada. The fate of the World Trade Organization (WTO) hinges on its ability to reconcile two contrasting political imperatives. The WTO must adapt to rapid globalization with the demands that places on the most sophisticated sectors of the advanced economies, and it must integrate developing countries into the trading system. We can see this tension in discussions of one of the central norms of the regime, transparency. Many conceptions of the rule of law as administrative law (often called “good governance”) stress the importance of regulatory autonomy and transparency. This norm is based on the principled belief that democratic governance and efficient markets are enhanced when participants know what is going on, and when administrative agencies have a degree of autonomy. These ideas are now central to the politics of the WTO in three ways. The first is external transparency, meaning how well citizens in general and civil society organizations can see into the work of the organization, and the second is internal transparency, meaning the ability of smaller and developing country members to participate in the organization. In these two modes, debates are about actor identity and capacity