From World Trade Law to World Competition Law

The WTO has become the chosen forum for various trade-related additional policies and provisions such as Trade Related Environmental Measures (‘TREMS‘), TRIMS, TRIPS, and possibly in the future, competition and investment rules. The TRIPS, as is well known, owes its existence to trade-offs with DCs, which have still not been fully implemented. Future additional policies, if controversial, would need to be justified separately on economic grounds, or risk failure. Detailed multilateral competition rules will undoubtedly be adopted one day. I believe, however, that the time is not yet ripe for a comprehensive agreement, except perhaps on the most abstract of principles. In the meantime, it will be due to the very processes of regionalization and globalization that enterprises will increasingly be subject to national competition laws