Good governance at the world trade organization: Building a foundation of administrative law

Good governance lies at the heart of both the effectiveness and legitimacy of collective decision-making. In this essay, Professor Esty argues that, if the World Trade Organization (WTO) is to be successful in its designated role of promoting trade liberalization and helping to manage international economic interdependence, it needs a deeper commitment to good governance, advanced through a more refined structure of administrative rules and procedures. He identifies 14 core elements of good governance and traces how administrative law might promote each one in the WTO context. While acknowledging the difficulty of bringing administrative law to the supranational level, Esty concludes that there exists an emerging consensus around many of the underpinnings of good governance-and therefore places value in trying to build these elements in to the WTO policy-making process.