Developing a normative critique of international trade law : special & differential treatment

Although the problem of trade and inequality is central to the resolution of the WTO Doha Round and to contemporary trade policy in general, it is currently undertheorized from a normative perspective. In this paper I develop a normative critique of WTO special and differential treatment law, as a case study of how normative political theory can be applied to international economic law. Using Rawls' theory of Justice as Fairness, I argue both that special and differential treatment can play an important role in justifying economic inequalities according to the difference principle, and that special and differential treatment as currently structures fails abysmally to do so. In doing so, I will also identify conceptual issues which need to be addressed in order to develop such a critique, and illustrate how I address such issues in my own work.