Towards a New Paradigm of the Right to Self-Determination in the World Trading System

There has been a shifting meaning of the right to self-determination, since World War II, from territorial decolonisation into other meanings such as the right for indigenous people, minorities, ethnics groups and women's rights in the territories of independent states. Furthermore, the new phenomenon signifies that it is also used implicitly in the World Trading System by states in maintaining their sovereignty from trade liberalization. This has been a dilemma in understanding the right to self-determination within International Law. This paper, however, critically evaluates the potential applicability of the right to self-determination in the world trading architecture. It begins by examining the origins, evolution and current struggle to the right to self-determination in the world trading system. It then addresses in General Exceptions, Safeguard Measures and Special and Preferential Treatment as existing and applied principles in the World Trade Organization. It is highlighted that the real world still needs the right to self-determination as a means of struggling for economic justice. The right to self-determination has shifted from the right to transfer territory politically into the right to the transfer of welfare economically and in particular, the right to self-determination of people into the right to self-determination of states