Over the last several years, a chorus of voices have called for international action in the area of competition policy. A good deal of dissonance, however, can be discerned among these voices, Most who have joined in share at least a stated commitment to promoting competition principles, as embodied in the antitrust la-tvs of many countries. Yet their policy prescriptions differ dramatically, as evidenced by the divergent views of the United States and Europe. The European Commission proposes that the member states of the World Trade Organization (WTO) negotiate a binding competition code. The United States has rejected this idea and counterproposes increased bilateral cooperation between national competition authorities and continued study of the issue. Of course, national differences may arise as much from negotiating tactics as from disagreement on the analytics of which kind of arrangements are most likely to advance competition principles;(1) but for those interested in law and policy, these analytics should be central to choosing among varying proposals. Since competition policy was one of the many issues left unresolved by the failed Seattle ministerial meeting of the WTO in late 1999,(2) and will surely be revisited, how and why certain institutional configurations advance or retard agreed policy aims are questions ripe for attention,(3) The answers will help define the possibilities for competition policy in an era of globalizing markets and contribute to a broader debate over the limits of trade policy in reconciling national economic policies. Although legal, economic, and international-relations scholars are now generally at pains to consider how institutional considerations affect outcomes, much of the debate over international competition arrangements seems oddly to underappreciate these factors. The analysis in this article raises doubts about the effectiveness of proposed arrangements-particularly in the WTO, but also in the Organisation for Economic Go-operation and Development (OECD)-for changing state behavior to remedy international competition problems, The general language of national competition rules, whose application to specific cases evolves over time, is not optimally suited to application in an international system attempting to bind sovereigns, Moreover, the rather adversarial character of the WTO system makes it an unpromising vehicle for fostering the cooperation among states that will be necessary to address some types of problems concerning international competition policy. My analysis also suggests that the meaning, as well as the effectiveness, of a proposed competition-policy arrangement will depend substantially on die institutional context in which it is grounded. A competition arrangement in the WTO will be substantively shaped by the norms and procedures of the trading system. Elaboration of the rules will be heavily influenced by the market-access norms of trade policy, and the consumer-welfare norm informing antitrust laws probably de-emphasized. No matter how adroitly these two sets of norms are reconciled in theory, they cannot realistically be expected to remain in happy equipoise in practice. Housing a competition arrangement in the WTO would inevitably favor the trade norms where the two conflict. Accordingly, forcing the square peg of competition policy into the round hole of trade policy will change the shape of the peg. Part I of this article attempts to define with some precision the nature and intensity of the problems to be addressed by the current proposals. Part II begins by outlining salient considerations in devising or assessing international institutional arrangements. It then assesses the likely efficacy and costs of international competition arrangements in the WTO and the OECD in light of these considerations. Part III presents my own proposals for international competition arrangements, based on both my positive assessment of the consequences of the institutional alternatives and my own choices among the aims and values implicated by international competition policy.
