WTO design deliberately scaled European constitutionalism into a global trade constitution

Evidence

For Tumlir, Petersmann, and ­others in the influential cohort of the draf­ters of the WTO, the goal was to scale up the “Eu­ro­pean idea” of neoliberal constitutionalism from the continent to the world economy, making the WTO into a “trade constitution” in which the Dispute Settlement Body and the Appellate Body would act as equivalents of the Eu­ro­pean Court of Justice. Consistent with the development of Geneva School neoliberalism, their idea joined the thinking of Böhm and Hayek, bringing neoliberal decisionism and a vision of the strong ­legal enforcer to the Hayekian cybernetic construct of stratified, multilevel order. Inspired by their concern about the “degeneration” of the world trade order effected by the NIEO and its potentially contagious effects, the GATT reformers sought to fulfill the spirit of Hayek’s vision by calibrating a stratified order for rules of just conduct in which prices as well as laws and rights would act as “signals and incentives for adjustment.” — Quinn Slobodian, Globalists, 836

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the book’s central thesis from earlier chapters about the Geneva School’s project to insulate markets from democratic politics, now operationalized in institutional design. — connects to: German ordoliberalism was exported to Europe via the ECB constitution and Euro rules — Mark Blyth, Austerity: The History of a Dangerous…, 375; The EU’s constitutional design embodies German ordoliberal principles — Mark Blyth, Austerity: The History of a Dangerous…, 374; The Treaty of Rome became a supranational constitution enforcing market rules beyond democratic reach — Quinn Slobodian, Globalists: The End of Empire and the…, 708 (+6 more)

Broader Connections

• Petersmann tied the globalization of human rights to WTO-enforced open markets #complicates (0.70) — Jessica Whyte, The Morals of the Market, 57
• Compact-theory popular sovereignty permits foreign intervention where European sovereignty does not #expands (0.70) — Philip Chase Bobbitt, Reflections Inspired by My Critics, 314