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Although this article refers to ‘reform’ and ‘international’ economic governance, it is surely safe to think of ‘reforms’ and ‘global’ economic governance through WTO reform, whether of its institutional, procedural or substantive law. This analysis of Weiss includes the key concepts of ‘globalization’, ‘governance’ and ‘reform’. The central question deals with wondering if the WTO is ‘reformable’. The answer can be positive if we start with a broad understanding of ‘reform’. After the demise of the Havana Charter, which set out the basic rules for international trade and other international economic matters, the GATT contracting parties, lacking the support of a purposefully designed treaty-based institutional infrastructure, became accustomed to operating pragmatically, seeking and frequently failing to reach consensus on incremental improvements to their practice, let alone on creating a fully-fledged International Organization. The Ministerial Declaration of Punta del Este did not include the establishment of the WTO. Instead, the ‘Functioning of the GATT System’ was to be enhanced through ‘understandings and arrangements’. And it was also this pattern of flexibility inherent in GATT/WTO negotiations, which the European Court of Justice consistently invokes so as to deny provisions of the GATT, the WTO and of its covered agreements direct effect in the EU. Perhaps, in view of that antecedent history of evolutionary reform practice, ambitious blueprints for institutional and procedural reform are not even called for as long as incremental systemic improvements, however patchy, remain rooted in the fundamentally unchanged commitment to the shared common value of a liberal non-discriminatory multilateral trading system. After all, procedure, by definition, and one might add institutions, are no more than ways of getting somewhere.
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