WTO trade law was framed as the enforcement arm of human rights.

Evidence

Eight years before the WTO embraced the idea of a mutual relation between human rights and competitive markets, Petersmann argued that the globalisation of human rights relies on the open markets, prohibition of economic discrimination and ‘welfare-enhancing division of labour’ enforced by the WTO, while human rights promote economic integration by ‘protecting personal autonomy, legal and social security, peaceful change, individual savings, investments, production and mutually beneficial transactions across frontiers’. — Jessica Whyte, The Morals of the Market, 57

Categorization

• XREF: Petersmann’s WTO-human rights interdependence thesis bears directly on the reader’s austerity/neoliberalism debate. — connects to: Petersmann tied the globalization of human rights to WTO-enforced open markets — Jessica Whyte, The Morals of the Market: Human Rights…, 57; The World Bank’s human-rights turn framed rights as elements of economic risk governance — Jessica Whyte, The Morals of the Market: Human Rights…, 299; Neoliberal thinkers reframed human rights as protections for market freedoms. — Jessica Whyte, The Morals of the Market: Human Rights…, 56 (+3 more)

Broader Connections

• Petersmann tied the globalization of human rights to WTO-enforced open markets #expands (0.90) — Jessica Whyte, The Morals of the Market, 57
• WTO design deliberately scaled European constitutionalism into a global trade constitution #expands (0.80) — Quinn Slobodian, Globalists, 836
• Neoliberal thinkers reframed human rights as protections for market freedoms. #corroborates (0.78) — Jessica Whyte, The Morals of the Market, 56
• The World Bank’s human-rights turn framed rights as elements of economic risk governance #corroborates (0.75) — Jessica Whyte, The Morals of the Market, 299
• Neoliberals framed human rights as a tool to enforce global standards protecting private capital #corroborates (0.75)
• Human rights law and neoliberal economics converge to regulate conduct by quantifying freedom #corroborates (0.75)