Linkage of Free Trade and Social Regulation: Moving beyond the Entropic Dilemma

INTRODUCTION

In the early 1990s, as the historic Uruguay Round struggled toward a successful conclusion, a panel established under the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade ("GATT"),1 which had governed international trade for the previous half century, struck down a recently enacted US embargo

on Mexican yellow-finned tuna.2 The US Marine Mammal Protection Act of 1972(3) had proscribed a certain controversial tuna fishing practice that inevitably caused the incidental killing of dolphins on a large scale. The gist of the panel's ruling was that the US embargo was not necessary to protect marine mammals because the US had failed to explore other reasonable, less trade-restrictive alternatives, including reaching a cooperative arrangement with tuna exporters such as Mexico.

Whatever the merits of the panel decision, environmentalists in the US and other Western countries led popular protests against the decision based on the view that it had arrogantly countermanded a widely popular domestic measure intended to protect the beloved dolphin, as well as other endangered marine mammals. Some protesters performed a scene in which "GATTzilla," a demonization of GATT as the famed Japanese monster, devoured helpless little dolphins. Through this and other similar publicity methods, protesters were quite successful in depicting GATT-and free tradists in general-as cold-blooded monsters that cared little about legitimate environmental causes.

In the late 1990s, hope and frustration contended once again in the lead-up to the historic Seattle Round, which was marred by a protest with an estimated 50,000 to 100,000 participants. This global alliance of protesters, unprecedented in scale and intensity, accused the World Trade Organization ("WTO"),4 the successor to the old GATT, of ignoring environmental values in the name of free trade. This time, the alleged victims were sea turtles sacrificed in the process of shrimp harvesting. In a decision rendered not long before the Seattle Ministerial Meeting, the WTO Appellate Body struck down a US ban on shrimp harvested by India, Malaysia, Pakistan, and Thailand which used shrimping methods that inevitably caused the incidental killing of sea turtles on a large scale. The Seattle protest was fueled by a generalized antiglobalization mood, reinforced by an unlikely alliance between "Turtles and Teamsters," and finally aided by then President Bill Clinton's unexpected expression of sympathy for the goals of the street protesters. In the end, the Seattle Round proved to be a fiasco.

The two cases described above illustrate a glaring tension between free trade and social regulations in areas such as environmental protection. On the one hand, such tension eloquently demonstrates the existence in a phenomenological sense of a certain "link" or "linkage" between various competing values associated with the regulation of international trade. In fact, this linkage seems an inevitable phenomenon considering the multiplicity of values that individuals, states, and institutions pursue. People seem to desire free trade-or at least global free markets, driven by the principle of efficiency-that expands economic opportunity and promotes material welfare. At the same time, they also yearn for a better quality of life-including better social hygiene in the areas of environmental quality and human safety-and value the principle of regulatory autonomy.

Yet in the real world, such values and policy objectives are not formulated or analyzed in isolation. Rather, they tend to be addressed in combination by means of relational approaches that emphasize areas of mutual influence. This relational posture, which is strongly influenced by the current high level of economic interdependency, is itself a function of the natural linkage among the values in question.

On the other hand, tension stemming from competing values constitutes a threat to the institutional integrity of the global trading system. Since no trading system can long survive a high degree of internal friction, hostility, or contradiction, the global trading system has tended to try to eliminate or at least mitigate such internal tension wherever possible. From a deontological perspective, linkage or "trade and . . ." phenomena should be addressed effectively in order to maintain a healthy global trading system.

Given the normative significance of the linkage phenomenon for the future of international trade, it comes as no surprise that international law scholars have recently attempted to diagnose and prescribe solutions from a variety of analytical perspectives. Yet despite the richness and creativity of this growing body of literature, the existing works still leave much to be desired. For instance, however ambitious they may be, many are too theoretical or hypothetical, leaving their practical or pragmatic value in doubt.5 A more serious problem lies in their failure or inadequate devotion to analyze the telos of the global trading system-that is, "what the global trading system is for" and "where it should be directed"-in the context of the linkage debate. Just as any meaningful prescription for institutional change must be rooted firmly in a clear understanding of the identity and purpose of that institution, so it is that any normative or institutional attempt to tackle linkage issues must be premised on the very rationale of the contemporary global trading system, for example, the coherent pursuit of trade and social values.6 Otherwise, any approach to linkage, however ingenious it may appear on the surface, will ultimately prove to be vulnerable to attack from either side.

Focusing on the tension between free trade and social regulation, this Article argues that the WTO, in alliance with other international institutions, must develop a synergistic, nonentropic linkage within the constitutional structure of the global trading system. In the analysis set forth below, considerable emphasis is placed on the concept of a "trade constitution." This is because any practical prescriptions for achieving the desired synergy must necessarily flow from an accurate understanding of the capabilities and constraints of legal and political realities inherent to a broad multisphere trading system composed of Member states, the WTO, and other international organizations. In each context, the development of a synergistic solution will require us to select, depending upon institutional feasibility, from a variety of institutional options reflecting various degrees of linkage. For example, the WTO jurisprudence on trade and the environment has a different meaning, and makes a different contribution to a synergistic linkage between free trade and environmental protection, than do discussions and recommendations under the WTO Committee on Trade and the Environment. This pragmatic multifaceted approach will eventually form the basis of a holistic vision of the global trading system.

In the discussion that follows, section I begins by exploring the genesis of linkage. Although its relative emphasis may be a recent development, linkage is not itself a new phenomenon, but a long-contemplated topic in the history of international trade. section II surveys and categorizes the contemporary linkage debate from three aspects: motivation (why to link), desirability (whether to link), and issue areas (what to link). It then critiques the existing literature, arguing that representative works are either too hypothetical, unempirical, or narrowly focused on particular regulatory topics. Against the backdrop of this critique, Section III shifts the focus of the linkage debate to the tension between free trade and social regulation. Based on the view that this tension could, if left unaddressed, ultimately lead to an entropie disaster of either trade failure or regulatory failure, section IV proposes a synergistic understanding of competing values that emphasizes, and is consistent with, the WTO's integrationist telos. Based on this synergistic vision, and within the bounds of institutional feasibility, Section IV explores a multifaceted list of options, the implications of which extend well beyond the narrow terrain of WTO activities. These options include jurisprudence, harmonization, surveillance, international standards and government networks, and interinstitutional cooperation. In a brief conclusion, I argue that the proper management of linkage will enhance the legitimacy of the global trading system as a whole.

I. THE GENESIS OF LINKAGE

The history of linkage dates back to the dawn of the modern global trading system. After the end of World War II, the Allies, at the behest of the US, came up with an ambitious blueprint for a postwar international economic order. This project, commonly known as the "Bretton Woods system,"7 comprised three main pillars: "international trade" under the auspices of an International Trade Organization ("ITO"), "international monetary and financial matters" under the auspices of the International Monetary Fund ("IMF"), and "international development" under the auspices of the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development. Initially, the operational sphere of the ITO was very broad, addressing a number of important social issues such as labor and competition policy that lay outside the scope of international trade per se.8 In this initial linkage between trade and nontrade, the inclusion of social concerns must be understood in the context of the bitter social upheaval that accompanied the Great Depression and scattered the seeds of World War II.9

Yet this grand vision never materialized, mainly because the US administration at the time failed to secure congressional approval for the creation of the ITO. Interestingly, it was the inclusion of such subjects as labor and unemployment that undermined congressional support for the ITO. The Republican-dominated Congress was resistant to the idea that the Executive Branch should play such a comprehensive role in the international arena without the traditional checks and balances. Following the official demise of the ITO and a number of intermittent efforts to revive it, the grand enterprise was reduced to GATT. Originally conceived as one of many chapters of the ITO Charter, GATT took the form of an executive agreement with the Protocol of Provisional Application consisting of little more than derogations and exemptions. Nonetheless, even in this minimalist approach, a certain link between trade and social regulation could be found. Whereas GATT Articles I and III enshrined bedrock free trade principles such as Most-Favored Nation and National Treatment, Article XX (General Exceptions) responded to a variety of social concerns, such as protection of the environment and human health, and provided that they could, under certain circumstances, override the free trade obligations set forth in other provisions. Although a detailed discussion of the historical development of the international trading system is beyond the scope of this Article, the foregoing summary should suffice to illustrate that linkage is not a new issue per se.10 On the other hand, the phenomenon of linkage has recently begun to receive an unprecedented degree of scholarly attention for reasons that will be discussed in the following section.

II. THE LINKAGE NARRATIVES: CURRENT DEBATES

A. CATEGORIZATION

The recent academic debate surrounding the linkage issue has produced a voluminous and expanding literature. Containing as it does many useful insights and contributions, a careful review of this literature is a necessary prerequisite to the task of diagnosing problems and prescribing solutions to the linkage issue. A detailed and systematic review of such a rich and variegated body of work, however, would require far more space than a brief article permits.11 Therefore, the focus of the following critique of this literature is restricted to three major concerns: motivation (why to link), desirability (whether to link), and issue areas (what to link). Importantly, these three aspects of linkage are inseparably connected to one another. For example, the "desirability" of linkage tends to influence its "motivation." Those who advocate the close linkage of human rights to trade may hold a great incentive in strategizing their position in the negotiation settings.12 For another example, "issue areas" are naturally revealed in the course of analyzing the "desirability" of linkage. Those who denounce the linkage of human rights to trade as yet another manifestation of protectionism would naturally strive to exclude this area from the normative reach of international trade.

B. VARIOUS ASPECTS OF LINKAGE

1. Motivation (Why to Link)

Some scholars view linkage not only as a natural phenomenon, driven by economic interdependency, but also as a purposeful enterprise. For instance, Frieder Roessler argues that linkage proposals, such as "greenfing]" the WTO or "takfing] up" labor rights, aim to "change domestic policies in these [issue] areas" via trade restrictions.13 He suggests four motivations behind these proposals: "offsetfing] differences between domestic policies," "eliminating] differences between domestic policies," "domestic bargaining across issue areas," and "international [political] bargaining across issue areas."14 He then criticizes these motivations by arguing that a tariff or subsidy can be a better tool to offset such differences, that positive harmonization to eliminate such differences is hard to achieve under the WTO, that trade restrictions should not be employed to support "domestic political coalitions" among interest groups, and that linkages beyond manageably related issue areas cannot be stably maintained.15

From yet another purposeful standpoint, certain subject matters or issue areas can be exchanged and bargained for in negotiation settings. For instance, in the Uruguay Round negotiation, developed countries successfully included new issues such as intellectual property rights and services in the WTO system in return for acceptance of developing countries' perennial wish lists, including a phase-out of textile quotas.16 David Leebron depicts this strong "reciprocal" type of linkage as "strategic linkage"17 or "issue barter."18 In a similar tone, Jos Alvarez describes the "nesting" of various subjects within the WTO.19 Yet scholars like John Jackson challenge this type of linkage on the ground that reciprocity, unlike traditional tariff negotiation, does not address the "non-tariff regulatory barriers that most linkage issues involve.20 It would be fair to say that such linkage bargaining does not enjoy a normative justification, though it can certainly be translated into a kind of political bargaining "game."21 Worse, if such bargaining is conducted in a disproportionate manner that provides benefits to rich countries at the expense of poor countries, it becomes tantamount to the "launder[ing]" of unilateral pressures by rich and powerful (Western) countries.22 As Alvarez pointedly observes, the result may decidedly seem to be a form of "neoimperialism" to those in poorer countries.23

Attempts at laundering or the strategic linkage of certain issue areas espoused by developed countries and the northern nongovernmental organizations ("NGOs"), such as human rights or labor standards, are often characterized by a moralistic streak. Moralism is invoked to justify the use of the WTO's teeth-in other words, sanctions-in the event of violations of these norms. However, many developing countries have alleged that the reality behind such rhetoric, obscured by the moral high ground, amounts to little more than disguised protectionism. Following this line of argument, Jagdish Bhagwati observes that forced harmonization toward higher social standards often originates from "commercial" considerations. That is, the phenomenon is driven not by altruistic concern for the welfare of people living in developing countries but by the complaints of producers in rich countries that a lower regulatory burden on poor country exporters is "unfair."24 The conflict between these contrasting positions ultimately raises the issue of the "desirability" of linkage, which is discussed in the following section.

2. Desirability (Whether to Link)

The demand for linkage often stems from a desire to capitalize on certain institutional benefits of the WTO, such as its enforcement mechanism, in addressing nontrade issues, such as labor standards and human rights, when national regulatory efforts fail to satisfy certain domestic constituencies. In this regard, the WTO has certainly become a popular "magnet" for social policies,25 "pull [ing] many international lawyers towards international adjudication as the primary method for linkage."26 Yet as Leebron points out, this "regime borrowing" is only a "second-best solution" since it falls short of improving an unsatisfactory linked regime independently.27 In the same context, Alvarez warns against the linkage of human rights and trade on the ground that international human rights law is porous and incomplete, providing, for example, no universal consensus on the content of material obligations.28 From a different perspective, Jeffrey Dunoff argues that the "incorporation of other bodies of international law" into the WTO system may unduly increase the legalization of those other bodies when such a development is not proper.29

Many other scholars, including economists and legal scholars alike, accept this negative point of view on linkage for various reasons. Jim Rollo and Alan Winters observe that enforcing higher labor and environmental standards via trade sanctions will result in not only the maladministration of those standards but also the loss of the traditional economic benefits of trade liberalization.30 Frieder Roessler sides with this view by maintaining that linkage will fail to achieve both trade liberalization and regulatory objectives of linked subjects.31 At a deeper level, Robert Stern trenchantly observes that the best way to achieve higher labor standards in developing countries is to open the markets of developed countries and encourage the economic development of developing countries.32 Along similar lines, Gregory Shaffer offers the insight that such linkage efforts will eventually fail in the absence of material financial assistance to poor countries to help the latter meet the higher regulatory standards demanded by rich countries.33

In parallel with the critical views described in the preceding paragraph, most developing countries strongly reject the idea of linkage, mainly due to the fear of protectionism.34 This allergic reaction by developing countries to any attempt to link nontrade regulatory issues to trade is in part attributable to the fact that the Uruguay Round has been implemented in a "strikingly asymmetrical manner" to the detriment of developing countries.35 For instance, developed countries have done little to phase out quotas on textiles and clothing as mandated by the Agreement on Textiles and Clothing, while increasingly pressuring developing countries to implement the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights ("TRIPs").36

Nonetheless, some scholars have highlighted the benign effects that linkage may deliver under certain circumstances. Here, one finds a varying degree of intensity of such linkage along a wide continuum of perspectives. A modest approach tends to espouse coexistence of trade and human rights obligations and acknowledge the need to sensitize the WTO in favor of human rights protection. Gabrielle Marceau argues that a good faith interpretation of the WTO treaties should take into account all relevant international law obligations including human rights, and that there exists a "soft presumption" against conflicts between trade and human rights obligations.37 However, she opposes the idea of enforcing human rights obligations through the WTO dispute settlement mechanism on the grounds of the specificity of WTO rights and obligations, as well as the "limited jurisdiction" of the WTO panels and the Appellate Body.38

A more proactive approach endeavors to integrate certain core elements of human rights obligations within the domain of WTO norms. Sandra Polaski, for example, observes that developing countries, if they adopt certain minimum workers' rights such as the "right to organize unions and bargain over wages," can effectively alleviate their poverty and income inequality while improving their market access to those developed countries that condition market access upon compliance with minimum labor standards.39 In a similar vein, Virginia Leary proposes a multilateral approach to the incorporation of social clauses, for example, fundamental workers' rights or minimum international labor standards, into the WTO. Leary's approach would involve entrusting the International Labor Organization ("ILO") with major competences covering the interpretation of fundamental or minimum international labor standards, and possible dispute resolution through "fact finding" and "moral persuasion."40

At the other end of the spectrum, a radical approach attempts to "constitutionalize" international trade law in the name of human rights. ErnstUlrich Petersmann identifies certain human rights functions in WTO rules, such as the nondiscrimination principle, and then constitutionalizes them in the broader terrain of "Global Integration Law."41 Working from his unique understanding of EC integration law, Petersmann envisions a "worldwide integration law" that empowers WTO citizens to retain and exercise their economic human rights such as freedom to trade, which are indivisible from other civil and political human rights, both in domestic and international arenas.42 Furthermore, Petersmann argues for "express references" to human rights protection in WTO Ministerial Declarations or WTO jurisprudence in order to "enhance a more coherent constitutional discourse and more general awa reness of the complementary functions of human rights and of global integration law."43 His approach has provoked significant criticism from many sides. For instance, Philip Alston observes that:

this process of human rights-based (or more accurately human rights justified) 'constitutionalization' of the WTO is a highly contentious one. While it is true that some human rights, and many labour rights, proponents would like to see a significant role for the Organization in these respects,. . . they certainly do not see it as an Organization which is designed, structured, or suitable to operate in the way that one with major human rights responsibilities would. The Agreement Establishing the WTO is not a constitutional instrument in the sense of constituting a political or social community, and its mandate and objectives are narrowly focused around the goal of 'expanding the production of and trade in goods and services.'44

In sum, there is as yet no academic consensus on the desirability of linkage. With respect to human rights, in particular, the issue remains open to further debate and controversy.

3. Issue Areas (What to Link)

Inseparable from the foregoing discussions of "why to link" and "whether to link" is the question of "what to link." Inevitably, discussions surrounding the former two aspects of linkage are framed in terms of particular subject areas, such as labor or the environment, on a selective basis. Therefore, one should always bear in mind this interrelationship among three aspects of linkage when reviewing the literature on linkage, especially those studies that directly address the question of "what to link."

One detects a wide spectrum of opinion in the literature dealing with linkage in light of the WTO's accommodating stance on various issue areas. Making a bold case for a World Economic Organization ("WEO"), Marco Bronckers rejects the "mono-culture" view of the WTO while promoting a much broader concept of its potential.45 Working from the philosophical premise that the WTO could embrace other societal values, such as labor and environmental protection,46 Bronckers proposes a number of institutional reforms aimed at achieving "[ijnternal coexistence" between the WTO and side agreements such as the General Agreement on Trade Services ("GATS") and TRIPs as well as "[ejxternal co-operation" with other institutional organizations such as the World Intellectual Property Organization ("WIPO") and ILO for the purpose of enabling the WTO to effectively address such societal values.47

Other scholars take a more selective approach. Focusing on market access issues, KyIe Bagwell, Petros Mavroidis, and Robert Staiger advocate broadening the linkage horizon only to the extent that it includes those regulatory issues that address "pecuniary externalities," such as "race-to-trie bottom" and "regulatorychill concerns."48 From a more theoretical and analytical perspective, some scholars attempt to establish criteria for determining which issue areas should be brought within the WTO's domain through linkage. Philip Nichols, for example, suggests four attributes of a successful candidate for linkage: first, the issue lies "squarely within the legal competency" of the WTO; second, "the issue is significant"; third, the WTO is "capable of enforcing any guidelines it issues concerning the issue; and fourth, that the issue requires international coordination, and that the [WTO] will provide the optimal coordination."49 Applying this checklist to the issue of "transnational bribery," Nichols contends that the WTO should disseminate guidelines for curbing it.50 Along similar lines, Steve Charnovitz examines competing ideas and various assumptions about the rationale of the WTO in the process of formulating a set of criteria ("frames") for determining the proper content of the WTO.51 Out of three different categories ("state-to-state relations," "domestic politics," and "international organization"), Charnovitz introduces eight possible "frames" for deciding which issues should properly be considered within the domain of the WTO. In this scheme, the eight "frames" are divided into those dealing with state-to-state relations ("Cooperative Openness," "Harmonization," "Fairness," and "Risk Reduction"), those dealing with domestic politics ("Self-Restraint" and "Coalition Building"), and those dealing with international organization ("Trade Functionalism" and "Comparative Institutionalism").52

Finally, a word of caution may be in order for the sake of clarification. The incorporation of certain areas, such as "services" and "intellectual property rights," into the WTO system has often been misconstrued as involving examples of linkage, as can be seen in the use of phrases such as "trade and services" or "trade and intellectual property rights." However, these subject areas constitute "trade" areas themselves and should be approached as "trade in services" and "trade in intellectual property rights," rather than as examples of linkage. At the same time, it should be understood that independent linkage problems can and do occur in these areas, for example in the case of "trade and environment" within the context of GATS.

C. CRITIQUE

This rich literature on linkage has made a major contribution to identifying this important problem and developing possible solutions. Yet many studies approach the issue from a "top-down" perspective and consequently fail to address the normative and institutional realities of the current global trading system.53 As a result, insufficient attention is paid to microinstitutions that could be mobilized to address linkage issues. Similarly, normative obstacles to the realization of the institutional visions set forth in such studies are given short shrift. While these works may offer significant merits in terms of theorizing and conceptualizing the linkage issue, they are generally deficient in the area of practical advice for policymakers and trade negotiators. In this regard, John Jackson, Jagdish Bhagwati, and Debra Steger have all criticized such studies as lacking empirical, policy-oriented, and development-oriented perspectives.54

At the same time, a narrow focus on a particular issue area should not be confused with the kind of empirical, practical perspectives that scholars like Jackson, Baghwati, and Steger would seem to advocate. To be sure, most debates on linkage focus on particular issues, such as labor, environment, or human rights. Perhaps, as Robert Hudec observes, "each author's particular contribution inevitably reflects that authors' professional perspectives."55 Although this tendency certainly enriches the debate by adding elements of specialization and professionalization, it also hinders the development of a coherent and consistent set of criteria capable of guiding the discussion on issues of linkage in productive directions. Such scattered narratives on linkage eventually fail to offer a more genuine understanding of the policy challenges lurking behind linkage debates. That is, they fail to explain the tension between trade and nontrade values, as well as its constitutional and evolutionary nature within the context of the current global trading community.56 Yet a genuine understanding of these aspects of linkage would provide academics and the general public alike with a much clearer comprehension of the linkage phenomenon as a whole. In the absence of such general, policy-based understanding, it is difficult to explain why certain issues are easier to address than others under current circumstances. Like in the old saying, it is difficult to see the forest when one is preoccupied with individual trees.

Put differently, the intensive focus on particular regulatory subjects tends to push the studies in question toward increasingly extreme points on the ideological spectrum between laissez-faire and dirigiste economies. Free tradists tend to oppose the idea of linkage itself, fearing an inundation of regulatory barriers. By contrast, domestic regulators and certain NGOs tend to advocate linkage, desiring to capitalize on the high-caliber WTO machinery to further their particular regulatory visions. The uncompromising nature of the conventional linkage narratives thus tends to thwart the development of an eclectic matrix of solutions that would be more feasible in reality. Critically, linkage is always a matter of degree. The intensity of linkage need not necessarily be strong, as manifested through trade sanctions, but could be modest, as observed in various WTO Committees, such as the Committee on Trade and Environment,57 which engage mainly in research and the exchange of information.

In theory, a variety of positions could be contrived in this wide spectrum to effectively reconcile the tension between trade and spcifie nontrade social issues. Yet much of the literature proposes solutions in a binary way as a question of bundled competence. That is, they ask whether the WTO can and should address labor or environmental issues in their entirety. Whatever their merits, binary solutions interfere with the development of more subtle methodologies. One such methodology explored in greater detail below involves approaching the WTO's institutional apparatus from a functional perspective in which the General Council, the Appellate Body, and the Committee on Trade and Environment are each examined in terms of their potential contributions to resolving the linkage dilemma.

In sum, to understand the true realities underlying the linkage phenomenon, we should move in a disciplined manner from posing appropriate questions to exploring a feasible set of solutions in response to those questions. In particular, it is crucial to recast the linkage question in terms of a tension between trade and nontrade social values and to contemplate solutions not only in terms of what to link but more importantly in terms of how to link. The next two sections will address these challenges in turn.

III. THE TRUE NATURE OF LINKAGE: TENSION BETWEEN FREE TRADE AND SOCIAL REGULATION

A. LINKAGE AS A SOURCE OF TENSION

As discussed above, the real question underlying all linkage issues-be they trade and health, trade and labor, trade and environment, or trade and human rights-is the tension between free markets and social regulation. A hypothetical case may illustrate this tension. Consider the following scenario.

Currently, even a small Mexican toy company can easily gain access to French consumers via e-commerce. Suppose, however, that the EU suddenly launches a new directive to ban the importation of products containing an allegedly toxic substance, which the small Mexican toy company happens to use. Suppose further that the substance in question is legal under both the Mexican regulatory regime and the North American Free Trade Agreement ("NAFTA") because no clear scientific evidence has been adduced to prove its potential harm to children. In this scenario, the global trading system would be caught in a dilemma. First, if the European ban is allowed to stand, not only Mexican toy companies, but also most North American toy factories, may lose access to the European markets. This is a trade failure. On the other hand, to strike the ban in the name of free trade would force citizens of European countries to endure fear and anxiety over their children's health despite the fact that the ban was not intended to protect certain European industries. Therefore, this is a regulatory failure. The tension between trade and regulatory failure, which leads to many such dilemmas, lies at the center of all linkage issues.

B. REGULATORY GRIEVANCE: REGULATORY FAILURE

As indicated by their respective appellations, both the GATT 1947 (General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade) and the new WTO (World Trade Organization) have located their primary institutional identity in the disposition of trade issues. Thus, the priority of both institutions undoubtedly lies in the elimination of tariff and nontariff barriers and the improvement of market access. This is true despite the fact that they have taken into account, in various ways, social issues inevitably linked to international trade. The most conspicuous medium through which to address the subject of linkage can be found in the textual relationship between the General Obligations that represent traditional trade values, such as GATT Articles I (Most-Favored Nation) and III (National Treatment), and the General Exceptions that represent certain social values, such as Article XX. Yet the intensity of such linkage seems rather weak. In other words, an inherent pro-trade bias, which is evidenced by a dichotomy between general obligations and exceptions, tends to prevent social values from prevailing over trade values in practice. Social regulations, such as health and safety measures, are investigated at an inferior stage as exceptions only after those measures turn out to be violations of general obligations.

Evidence of this pro-trade bias abounds. First, most social regulations are easily struck down as violations of the National Treatment obligation because the regulatory distinction that these regulations create tends inevitably to discriminate between "like" domestic and foreign products. For example, if the EU prohibits all production, distribution and marketing of genetically modified ("GM") food and accordingly bans foreign imports of GM soybeans, the EU measure may be found to violate GATT Article III on the theory that it discriminates between domestic nonGM soybeans and foreign GM soybeans despite their similar physical characteristics as soybeans. Here, one might argue that the existence of a different production methodology based on regulatory compliance should result in a finding of dissimilarity, or "unlikeness," to the EU nonGM soybeans. However, the GATT/WTO jurisprudence still maintains a product-onented as opposed to process-oriented perspective on the National Treatment obligation. In other words, soybeans are soybeans no matter how they are manufactured or processed. To discriminate between these like products is a violation of the National Treatment obligation.58 In sum, any disparate impact of a social regulation on domestic and foreign "like products," even impact due to legitimate regulatory distinction, results in a violation of GATT Article III.

second, the scope of general obligations such as Article III is quite farreaching. Article 111:4 is applied to "all laws, regulations and requirements affecting their internal sale, offering for sale, purchase, transportation, distribution or use."59 Such sweeping language as "all" and "affecting" tends to subject almost all social regulations to the discipline of Article III. The resulting situation is broadly analogous to that implicated by the affecting test in US Commerce Clause jurisprudence.60

Third, the general exception clause in Article XX, which represents various social regulations, such as protection of human health and environment, is incomplete. It is obsolete and deficient because it has not been amended since its creation in the 1940s. Indeed, certain social policy parameters articulated in the clause are even "anachronistically narrow," reflecting the regulatory sensitivities of the era in which it was drafted,61 rather than those of the twenty-first century.

Fourth, based on the principle that exceptions should be interpreted "narrowly,"62 GATT panels have traditionally maintained interpretive rigor when addressing exceptions. Moreover, in construing whether such exceptions are "necessary" to achieve putative domestic regulatory goals, panels have devised draconian tests such as the "least trade restrictive" test, according to which a defendant (regulating state) must demonstrate that the measure in question is the least trade restrictive alternative imaginable. This exacting interpretive stance has undoubtedly discouraged the social concerns embedded in such exceptions from actually being embraced through GATT jurisprudence. Not surprisingly, not a single GATT report rendered an affirmative ruling on exceptions.63

Nevertheless, such a sweeping pro-trade bias could not be sustained against the recent winds of change. First, domestic regulations have begun to receive greater attention. A great many domestic regulations have been issued in response to the popular demands of the welfare state and the novel risks associated with the creation of modern technology. second, traditional trade policy measures-such as tariffs and quotas-have begun to vanish partly because tariffs have already been lowered dramatically, and partly because governments have realized that the protection of certain domestic industries tends to be very costly, often harming the economic interests of their own citizens. Under these new circumstances, the original pro-trade bias, if left unchanged, would have failed to properly address the new status quo, thereby delegitimating the global trading system.

In this connection, numerous critics have raised their voices against the current inability of the WTO to tackle these contemporary problems. Philip Nichols, for example, criticizes the deficiency of GATT Article XX exceptions and warns that the failure to represent the "fundamental nature of societal values," such as labor, environment, and cultural identity, deprives the WTO of legitimacy.'64 Nichols goes on to argue for creating an exception, in addition to Article XX, to embrace such societal values.65 From a slightly different perspective, Jeffrey Dunoff contends that WTO panels should not engage in any "trade and . . ." issues by exercising judicial caution because their decisions risk delegitimating the WTO as a whole due to its embedded pro-trade bias.66 Some scholars view the WTO as an improper venue for the arbitration of social regulations because it lacks necessary resources such as institutional and technical expertise.67 In a parallel line, Michael Trebilcock and Robert Howse argue that "substantial national political autonomy" should be ensured in the domestic regulatory process even if those regulations will affect trade flows.68

In sum, the ever increasing magnitude of social regulations in the modern welfare state tends to result in a perpetual cycle of angst and grievance in the face of the inherent pro-trade bias of the WTO and consequent incapacity of the WTO system to treat social regulations in an appropriate way. In the absence of serious efforts to incorporate due "sensitivity" to legitimate social regulatory concerns, the legitimacy of the WTO cannot be ensured.69

C. THE DEMISE OF FREE TRADE:70 TRADE FAILURE

When confronting a legitimate regulatory concern, one might reasonably posit that domestic governments should be able to maintain their own regulatory autonomy and diversity. In other words, domestic regulations should be fully respected as long as they stand for legitimate objectives and are not protectionist. An intransigent adherence to one's own national standards, however, particularly when they are unique or idiosyncratic, often gives rise to a de facto form of protectionism. Where national standards have been established for a long time or were developed in an atmosphere of consultation with affected domestic companies, those companies are naturally at an advantage visa-vis competing foreign exporters in terms of compliance with those standards. Yet it is difficult to distinguish in practice between the unavoidable advantages accruing to domestic industries with respect to national standards and deliberately-designed, disguised forms of protectionism.71

Accordingly, unless regulatory diversity or regulatory heterogeneity is tolerated by importing countries72 or endorsed between importing and exporting countries through relevant legal instruments such as mutual recognition, importing countries would ban the import of those products that fail to comply with their own national standards. Under such circumstances, regulatory diversity or regulatory heterogeneity is itself a source of trade barriers in the global dimension. Moreover, the trade-restrictive nature of domestic regulations tends only to intensify as national economies become more interdependent. To be sure, certain large multinational enterprises might be able to survive such regulatory heterogeneity by using economies of scale flowing from a vast global market share to implement multiple production lines. Yet most small and medium-sized enterprises cannot afford such luxuries. From the perspective of these smaller players, the above scenario eventuates a high degree of economic ' concentration and a corresponding massive income disparity on a global scale.

This situation becomes more vivid still if the exporters are developing countries and the importers are developed countries with higher regulatory standards. Developing countries suffer from these higher standards mainly because they lack the financial and technical capability to meet highly sophisticated standards. Under these circumstances, nothing is gained from saddling developing countries with rich country standards. Still, some may argue for "fair" trade or a "level playing field" from the perspective of domestic industries in rich countries that claim to be unfairly disadvantaged when forced to comply with domestic standards from which foreign competitors are exempt.73 Similarly, some may warn against a theoretical "race to the bottom" or "social dumping" by which noncompliant products from developing countries trigger a downward competition for lower production costs among industries that eventually results in a deterioration of the general quality of regulatory protection.74 Yet to this date no significant empirical evidence has been produced to prove the existence of such theoretical phenomena.75

Moreover, under the principle of comparative advantage, producers in rich countries have a much easier time complying with higher regulatory standards than do their counterparts in poor countries since the former enjoy higher levels of technology. At the same time, a perennial grievance of companies in developed countries-cheap imports-is less a function of the relatively higher compliance costs borne by producers in rich countries than of the lower labor costs enjoyed by producers in poor countries. This, too, seems natural according to the principle of comparative advantage.76 To resolve this dilemma, serious and sustained efforts to build the capacity of poor countries to effectively comply with higher social standards are required. This can be accomplished via financial and technical assistance from rich countries. In the absence of such intervention, regulatory unilateralism works to undermine free trade in the form of either further protectionism77 or development failure.

D. BEYOND THE ENTROPIC DILEMMA

At first glance, the foregoing tension between regulatory grievances (regulatory failure) and free trade concerns (trade failure) inevitably poses a profound dilemma: if one value is promoted too forcefully, any resulting benefits are likely to come at the expense of the other value. Indeed, the conventional approach to linkage has been negative, as symbolized by the use of such terms as "clash" or "conflict."78 This negative perspective often leads to a "dialogue of the deaf framed in terms such as "[fjree trade versus labor standards" or "growth versus the environment."79 The predictable result is at best a zero-sum reconciliation in which trade and nontrade values cancel or offset each other under clashing or conflicting circumstances. Against the backdrop of expanding interdependency upon the contemporary international trade landscape, such zero-sum effects, if allowed to become widespread, will undermine the global trading system by greatly reducing the net value added.

It follows that the global trading community should take the more constructive step of adopting a positive perspective on linkage in order to transform international trade into a positive sum game. As the former WTO Director-General Renato Ruggiero maintains, economic growth powered by international trade leads to better social conditions.80 On the other hand, regulatory improvement tends to boost international trade through the economy of standardization or better "market contestability."81

In this regard, the global trading system has come to require a new telos capable of transcending the narrow purpose of antiprotection while at the same time connoting a much broader ideal of "integration" that ensures that both trade values and social values are upheld in a coherent and synergetic, rather than competing fashion.82 Reflecting this new teleology, the Preamble of the WTO Charter expresses the ideals of an "integrated, more viable and durable multilateral trading system" and "sustainable development,"83 which certainly go beyond the narrow antiprotectionist motto that was embedded in the old GATT. In the same context, the Doha Ministerial Declaration recently reaffirmed the Members' commitment to the objective of "sustainable development" under which a dual goal of open markets and adequate social regulation must be "mutually supportive."84

Naturally, this new telos necessitates strengthening the free trade/social regulation linkage, which has hitherto been limited by the inherent pro-trade bias of the key structures and institutions, and mandates the development of more practical problem-solving attitudes in pursuit of the dual goals of free markets and desired social regulation. This daunting task must rely for its achievement not only on jurisprudence but also on institutional instruments including, but not limited, to the WTO.85 Inevitably, this process will involve a complicated mix of law, politics, and policies as well as the subtle allocation of powers exercised by different entities, including national governments and international institutions such as the WTO.86 This "trade constitution,"87 which is embedded in the very concept of linkage, also reveals a new horizon in the field of international trade: "distributional issues."88 As seen in the experience of the EU, the effective implementation of a common social policy in a given polity, while minimizing any negative effect to trade, requires some kind of financial assistance mechanism, such as a "structural fund," to aid less developed members to equip themselves with higher regulatory standards.89

Importantly, just as no constitution is static, this "trade constitution" is not limited in its operation by a pnon restraints or predetermined competence limits of the type that would oblige the WTO to avoid engagement in certain issue areas.90 In fact, the "boundaries" of international organizations have always been flexible.91 This is especially so wherever one encounters an international organization with an evolving telos. Taken to an extreme, emphasis on flexibility could lead some to conclude that the mandate of the WTO should be expanded to cover such areas as labor and the environment, thereby institutionalizing an inseparable relationship between trade and social values.92 Following this line of thought, some scholars argue for greater horizontality and seamlessness in rule design in international economic law.93 Yet, the WTO is a trade organization, and it should reconcile and manage the tension between free markets and social regulations from the standpoint of a trade organization. Of course, this premise is by no means to maintain or revive the pro-trade bias in terms of reconciliation or management of the tension. Rather, it means that the WTO should contribute to the constructive harmonization of trade and social values without losing its institutional identity and capacity as a trade organization, while leaving adequate room for cooperation with other sector-specific international regulatory agencies such as the International Labor Organization ("ILO") and the United Nations Environmental Program ("UNEP").94

In sum, international trade law defines linkage as "trade and labor" or "trade and environment," not as "labor and trade" or "environment and trade," respectively.95 International trade law cannot share the same basis with the UNEP or ILO even when the WTO addresses putative linkage issues. To ignore its own institutional identity would be politically fatal and practically ineffective. After all, the WTO is not, and should not try to become, a form of World Government of the sort that might arguably be in a better position to fully federalize linkage issues.

IV. TOWARD A SYNERGISTIC LINKAGE: A MULTIFACETED APPROACH

A. LINKAGE CONTINUUM

Any credible attempt to achieve a synergistic linkage from the standpoint of the WTO must proceed from the realization that the linkage phenomenon is in most cases a matter of degree and that the way in which it is addressed should accordingly be understood not as a binary choice but as a spectrum of options. As discussed above, an antinomian stance toward either extreme, in other words, free trade versus regulatory unilateralism, would continue to create unnecessary tensions out of linkage, instead of mitigating or eliminating them.

Linkage can be achieved in many different ways, as circumstances merit. For instance, although GM food has recently commanded enormous legal and political attention within the global trading system, this linkage of trade and human health (or the environment) can be handled from totally different perspectives with totally different results. As the US has recently sued the EU for the latter's highly controversial moratorium on the approval of GM food, this controversy may end up being adjudicated in the WTO dispute settlement system.96 Alternatively, under a more constructive atmosphere a certain guideline as to administration and marketing of GM food could be issued to Members as a result of a joint effort by the Committee on Trade and Environment and the Committee on Sanitary and Phytosanitary Measures. Similarly, this issue could be discussed and deliberated in a functional and professional fashion under a surveillance mechanism such as the Trade Policy Review Mechanism ("TPRM").97 Or, in a much bolder though as yet implausible move, the WTO Members could agree on a new side agreement concerning this issue in cooperation with the World Health Organization or the United Nation Environmental Program. In each scenario, one can perceive a wide spectrum of options yielding varying degrees of trade and environmental protection. Critically, a different matrix of legal, political, and institutional stakes is employed in each scenario, and it is this subtle matrix of interests that ultimately determines the final destiny of the linkage in each particular scenario.

Admittedly, political stakes rank very high in any linkage matrix.98 Joel Trachtman, for example, regards the decision to link trade to other issues as essentially political." According to this view, law or economics should play supplementary roles in demonstrating various possibilities and consequences that each linkage might bring.100 In the final stage, individuals and states should decide the issue through a political process consisting of the assessment of different scenarios and the expression of competing preferences.101 According to this view, linkage problems should ultimately be addressed through such legislative measures as treaties or agreements.102 At the same time, however, many other tools and fora exist in the global trading system that are not necessarily political in themselves but are nonetheless capable of providing practical and functional solutions to linkage-related issues. For example, certain aspects of trade and environment linkage have been addressed via the GATT/WTO dispute settlement mechanism not in a political but in a (quasi-) judidal manner.103 Or, a variety of epistemic committees and similar avenues under the auspices of international institutions could explore linkage issues in an apolitical and functional fashion, thereby providing policymakers whose everyday regulatory decisions are based on linkage considerations with opportunities for the exchange of information and professional deliberation.104

B. MULTIFACETED LIST OF OPTIONS

1. Jurisprudence

The well-developed dispute settlement mechanism that has been operating since the birth of the old GATT 1947 is one of the main engines for addressing linkages. As Daniel Farber and Robert Hudec observe, GATT can offer fairly "workable" solutions in reconciling the tension between trade and social concerns such as environmental protection by distinguishing "bona fide regulation" from "protectionism."105 Panels and the Appellate Body have engaged in the adjudication of numerous cases at the intersection of trade and social regulations. Most of these cases involve various social regulations relating to health or environmental concerns that result in some type of incidental restriction on international trade. Therefore, the analysis of panels (or the Appellate Body) centers on the interpretation of general obligations that enshrine free trade, such as Articles I (Most-Favored Nation), III (National Treatment) and XI (Market Access), as well as exceptions that represent certain overriding social values, such as Article XX (General Exception).

Yet in the old GATT era, when a pro-trade bias was clearly evident, panels focused on the "content" of a given domestic regulation in their judicial review. This often resulted in a presumptive conclusion that the measure in question was not "necessary" or even rationally "related" to the attainment of the social values of the regulating state. This second-guessing or negation of legitimate policy objectives often infuriated domestic policymakers and thus diminished their perception of GATT's legitimacy. For instance, a panel struck down the Thai government's ban on the importation of foreign cigarettes despite its legitimate health concerns, which even the WHO supported, on the sole ground that a more trade-friendly solution theoretically could have been found.106

However, under the new WTO system the Appellate Body has directed its interpretive focus to the "manner" in which a given domestic regulation is applied, and not to the regulation's substance. In its jurisprudence, the Appellate Body has tried to scrutinize on a case-by-case basis whether a given domestic regulation was applied consistently and evenhandedly or whether it respected fundamental principles of law, rather than reinvestigating, on its own accord, whether the regulation's substance was necessary or related to the achievement of the regulating state's social policy goals. In fact, Farber and Hudec predicted with brilliant insight that future debates on linkage should prioritize regulatory processes over substantive regulations themselves because a "clean doctrinal solution" tends to be hard to achieve in the face of sophisticated regulations positioned along a wide spectrum of legitimate and protectionist objectives.107

Thus, in United States-Standards for Reformulated and Conventional Gasoline ('Gasoline"), the Appellate Body upheld the legitimacy of the US environmental policy toward clean air, but condemned its lack of effort during the regulatory process to reduce administrative requirements that resulted in a heavier compliance burden for foreign refiners.108 Likewise, in the famed United StatesImport Prohibition of Certain Shrimp and Shrimp Products (Shrimp-Turtle") case, the Appellate Body sympathized with the regulatory goals of US section 609109 (in other words, protection of endangered species such as sea turtles), but criticized flaws in its implementation process, such as the denial of due process, that ultimately hurt foreign shrimpers.110 The result of this new test was to safeguard the Members' regulatory autonomy by providing ample regulatory leeway for domestic regulators. Under this new test, even if a measure turned out to be a violation, the outcome was not catastrophic but merely suspensive or provisional, demanding only a change of application, rather than repeal of the offending statute. When the US lost the Shrimp-Turtle case, for example, it was not forced to change its domestic statute, section 609, but only its application.111

This invention of a new doctrinal test, which constitutes further evidence of the transformation of the telos of the global trading system,112 is premised on the chapeau of Article XX. The text of the chapeau is vague, consisting of nonspecific terms such as "arbitrary or unjustifiable discrimination" and "disguised restriction." Under the old GATT, this preambular text attracted little attention, resulting in a minimal amount of case law that was limited to expounding its lexicographical meaning.113 Yet the Appellate Body, through its ideological creation of a new doctrinal test, managed to invest the text with new meaning. This judicial innovation holds significant implications for the linkage debate. Most importantly, its "process-oriented" hermeneutics results in the creation of a synergistic space in which both trade and social values can be simultaneously upheld.114

As significant as it may be from the perspective of linkage theory, the Appellate Body's ideological interpretation is applicable only when a particular domestic regulation falls within the rubric of the "exhaustive" list contained in Article XX. As mentioned above, this list is incomplete and even anachronistic. A number of significant modern regulatory concerns such as consumer protection, labor, or anticompetition do not appear on the list. Consequently, the question is whether panels or the Appellate Body should accept for review cases involving regulations not expressly covered by the GATT/WTO, such as those regarding labor and consumer protection. From a judicial standpoint, certain methods can be conceived whereby interventions in such cases can be justified.

The first method involves returning to Article III and redeeming legitimate social regulations before they ate justified under Article XX. In other words, if a certain regulation is nonprotectionist and thus legitimate, it can be deemed consistent with Article III in the first instance. This approach, which is dubbed the "aim and effect" test,115 was implicated in the recent debate on PPMs.116 The term PPM, for "Processes and Production Method," stands for a variety of regulations concerning the way in which products are manufactured or processed.117 Under conventional trade rules, most PPMs constitute pnma fade violations of Article III because they discriminate between similar products on the basis of regulatory compliance. For example, a domestic regulation banning the importation of pelts from animals caught in leg-hold traps-which could be regarded as cruel-would constitute a violation of the National Treatment obligation because the ban discriminates between foreign leg-hold pelts and domestic non-leg-hold pelts.118 Because the protection of animal welfare is not found in Article XX, such regulations cannot be justified under a strict reading of Article XX. Even if such a regulation were justified under Article XX, critics argue that such a justification doctrine would impose an "unwarranted legal burden" on the achievement of legitimate social values, since the regulation in question was justified only after being condemned as a violation of Article III. Therefore, such critics contend that regulatory distinctions grounded in legitimate policy objectives should be found to be consistent with Article III without any further need for Exception Clause analysis.

Admittedly, advocates of PPMs may earn plaudits among certain constituencies for defying the pro-trade bias resulting from the dichotomy between the general obligations and exceptions embedded in GATT. To them, any legitimate social concern should be accorded a status equal to that of trade concerns by being redeemed in the first instance-at the level of Article III analysis-without the stigma associated with violation and redemption at the inferior stage of exceptionization. Yet the flaw in this argument is that if PPMs are allowed to go unchecked, the proliferation of regulatory protectionism and unilateralism is likely to follow.119 Put simply, it is far too easy for idiosyncratic regulations, even where they are nonprotectionist in intent, to create trade barriers, unless they are subjected to the doctrinal discipline of Article XX.120

McGinnis and Movsesian's "antidiscrimination model" comes close to the above position. This model advocates adjudication over legislation in addressing linkage issues on the grounds that the former secures regulatory autonomy and diversity and that it is less vulnerable to regulatory capture.121 Its central concern is "antiprotectionism," and it focuses particularly on disguised patterns of discrimination such as "covert protectionism," which are expressly aimed at legitimate policy objectives, such as protection of health or the environment, but which in practice impose burdens on competing importers.122 Since protectionism is, according to McGinnis and Movsesian, the only evil that the WTO should be concerned with expelling, they argue that the WTO should leave intact all other scopes of regulations such as those serving "bona fide public welfare function" regulations.123 According to this view, the WTO should tolerate any kind of trade-restrictive regulation as long as it is nonprotectionist. No matter what kind of disparate impact such regulation may have on free trade, it is not the WTO's business to remedy it.

The flaws in this approach are readily apparent because most of today's nontariff barriers tend to be based in arguably legitimate policy objectives. In fact, the current WTO jurisprudence concerns mainly nonprotectionist, yet still trade-restrictive regulations. In both the Gasoline (1996) and Shrimp-Turtle (1998) cases, for example, the Appellate Body explicitly endorsed the legitimacy of the US's environmental regulations. Where the US encountered trouble was with respect to the "chapeau test," under which the regulation as applied was found to jeopardize the interests of trading partners by omitting certain important procedural steps including hearing or consultation. This was so despite its legitimate, nonprotectionist environmental objectives. Not surprisingly, McGinnis and Movsesian neglect to take the "chapeau test" seriously in documenting the WTO's early jurisprudential record.124 As a corollary, they fault the Appellate Body's emphasis on the "duty to negotiate" as a departure from their antiprotectionist model.125 This narrow stance would not only exempt most contemporary nontariff barriers from scrutiny, but also neglect an important opportunity to build the very "world trade constitution" that they advocate for this increasingly interdependent global economic setting.

A second method for justifying panel or Appellate Body intervention with respect to social regulations not traditionally covered by Article XX is to expand the interpretive reach of those provisions so as to accommodate social concerns beyond those explicitly enumerated. The meaning of Paragraph (a), which protects "public morals," is extensive and considerably inferential. The above example of leg-hold traps could potentially be addressed under this paragraph.126 Similarly, Paragraph (d) recognizes an exception to secure compliance with or enforce any domestic regulation as long as its objectives are consistent with the WTO rules. Nonetheless, some would argue that a panel or the Appellate Body should, upon encountering a case linking trade to regulatory issues not covered by Article XX, simply refuse to adjudicate such cases because there is no relevant substantive law. Therefore, the argument is that a panel or the Appellate Body should avoid such cases in the first place by casting the non liquet excuse. Yet others might offer the counterargument that such a narrow and positivistic stance amounts to a "denial of justice" because it advocates the effective abdication of an adjudicative body's basic duty to resolve disputes and render justice.127 This opposing view argues for the use of "general principles of law" to fill in or supplement such lacunae.128 Indeed, most international law scholars claim that "there is no room for non liquet in international adjudication because there are no lacunae in international law."129

In a departure from these positivistic or naturalistic understandings of international law, Joel Trachtman contends that the general exception clause of GATT Article XX should be employed to address such non liquet situations.130 He maintains that the provisions of Article XX should be deemed "standards"-which are stipulated intentionally in a flexible way that permits broad room for interpretation under the premise of "incomplete contracts"-rather than "rulefs],"-which are specified a priori in a manner that leaves little room for interpretation.131 Accordingly, Trachtman contends that tensions arising from linkage issues should be resolved through these standards under Article XX.132 Yet other scholars, including Debra Steger, oppose the stretching of Article XX language on the ground that it would give too much power to quasi-judicial bodies.133 Based on her belief that linkage issues should be addressed only in political terms, she prefers the amendment of Article XX to accommodate contemporary regulatory concerns.134

A third method is for panels and the Appellate Body to refer to other bodies of international law, such as multilateral environmental agreements or labor conventions, in adjudicating linkage issues not covered by Article XX. This approach is based on the proposition that the WTO should be an open system rather than one that is closed and "self-contained."135 WTO law should be exposed to other disciplines of international law because WTO law is an "important part of the larger system of public international law."136 David Palmeter and Petros Mavroidis contend that the WTO tribunal's terms of reference under the Dispute Settlement Understanding ("DSU") Article 7(137) should be interpreted to permit panels and the Appellate Body to employ general sources of public international law, such as custom and general principles of law, under Article 38 of the Statute of International Court of Justice ("ICJ").138 Furthermore, they take the view that the WTO tribunal should embrace, as sources of law, non-WTO international agreements when they are referred to or incorporated in the WTO's covered agreements.139

In a similar context, Hudec focuses on a number of multilateral environmental agreements ("MEAs") that contain explicit or implicit trade restrictions to achieve putative goals such as protection of endangered species or regulation of substances that deplete the ozone layer, and that could consequently be regarded to be in conflict with GATT/WTO rules.140 Hudec argues that if all disputants are signatories of such MEAs, then any trade restrictions authorized thereunder can be interpreted as constituting a "waiver" of any inconsistent GATT obligations under the principle of /ex posterior or /ex specialist1 At the same time, Hudec acknowledges that a GATT violation is inevitable where those trade restrictions are imposed on a WTO Member that is not a signatory of the MEAs.142 To remedy this situation, he proposes the establishment of an independent exception for such restrictions modeled after GATT Article XX(h), which endorses trade restrictions arising in pursuit of obligations set forth in certain international commodity agreements.143 Nonetheless, the latter proposal seems difficult to achieve, at least for the time being, in view of the rather narrow scope of the relevant Doha agenda, which mandates that "[fjhe negotiations shall be limited in scope to the applicability of such existing WTO rules as among parties to the MEA in question."144

By contrast, certain other scholars reject this approach on the ground that the WTO dispute settlement mechanism should be used only within the context of covered agreements explicitly incorporated in the WTO Agreement.145 Trachtman, for example, maintains that the mandate of the WTO dispute settlement system is to directly apply "only WTO law."146 He predicates this argument on several Dispute Settlement Understanding provisions, including Article 3(2) providing that "[recommendations and rulings of the DSB [Dispute Settlement Body] cannot add to or diminish the rights and obligations provided in the covered agreements." He also takes the view that this text would amount to an absurdity if rights and obligations from other international treaties were to be applied.148 Nonetheless, Trachtman leaves the door open for the WTO to reference other bodies of international law either through adopting an interpretive method that avoids conflict with other treaties, as in the "Charming Betsy" doctrine,149 or by incorporating them indirectly based on Article XX.150

The fourth method involves judicial restraint, which is analogous to the "political question" doctrine in certain domestic jurisdictions. For instance, a GATT panel report, albeit one that was unadopted, refused to adjudicate a case involving a regional trading agreement under GATT Article XXIV on the ground that the "examination-or re-examination-of Article XXIV agreements was the responsibility of the CONTRACTING PARTIES." 1S1 In a practical sense, it might be advisable to avoid certain highly "political" cases that could be addressed in an out-of-court setting or deferred to domestic governments. If highly controversial cases of this type were to be overadjudicated under the WTO, the inevitable political backlash could do severe damage to its still frail legal integrity. As Alvarez trenchantly observes, certain "fundamentally political issues" should not be simply turned over to the WTO jurisprudence without a "political consensus."152 Reflecting similar concerns, the European Court of Justice has shown great deference in addressing certain domestic regulations marked by strong "socio-cultural characteristics." Admittedly, it would be difficult for a panel or the Appellate Body to refuse to adjudicate a case before it without a reason. To avoid needlessly placing it in this position, Members should exercise forbearance rather than testing the WTO dispute settlement system by filing highly politicized or scandalized cases.

These four methods possess both pros and cons, and it would be imprudent to apply any one of them mechanically without due regard to a particular linkage issue's specific circumstances. Overall, the first method-the "aim and effect" test-carries serious risks considering its potential for abuse or misuse, notwithstanding the fact that many scholars and government officials continue to embrace its logic, as seen in the recent Asbestos case.153 Similarly, it seems that the fourth method-judicial restraint-would not only be difficult for a panel or the Appellate Body to accept but also risky considering the high potential for political backlash from governments and NGOs pursuing regulatory goals that may be characterized by a strongly moralistic streak. In contrast, the second and third methods-expanding the interpretive reach of provisions and drawing on other bodies of international law-are practicable if employed with due caution. Given the extreme difficulty associated with mobilizing sufficient political capital to actually amend GATT Article XX, reliance upon some type of judicial innovation seems inevitable. For instance, in Shrimp-Turtle., the Appellate Body succeeded in enhancing its adjudicative credibility by formulating a teleological, evolutionary approach to interpreting "exhaustible natural resources" under GATT Article XX(g) to include endangered species such as sea turtles.154 Yet the main challenge to continued judicial innovation lies in the question of whether subtle and nuanced panels and the Appellate Body will prove both willing and able to move in this direction to address the linkage cases that come before them. Only time and experience will tell.

Notwithstanding the potential availability of these four methods, the bottom line is that the development of a synergistic solution to the linkage problem within the traditional GATT framework will require still other resources and innovations, due partly to the inherent pro-trade dichotomy discussed above, and partly to the lacunae of Article XX, among other concerns. Accordingly, our task requires us to look beyond GATT jurisprudence to discover additional resources in other parts of the WTO system, such as in the side agreements: for example, the Agreement on Sanitary and Phytosanitary Measures ("SPS") and the Agreement on Technical Barriers on Trade ("TBT").

2. Harmonization

A number of scholars have sought to tackle linkage issues more directly and systematically than through jurisprudence. These scholars advocate the use of legislation (treaty making) for the purpose of harmonizing diverse sector-specific social regulations. In a rather bold example of this general approach, Andrew Guzman proposes to use the legislative process to address linkage issues-in other words, to accommodate nontrade issues such as labor and competition-within the WTO. First, Guzman proposes that a number of separate "departments" for major linkage areas be created within the existing structure of the WTO. These departments, an example of which might be a so-called "trade and labor departments," would conduct specialized negotiations in the form of "departmental rounds."155 These would, in turn, be followed by "Mega-Rounds" in which cross-departmental bargains could be made.156 Through this process Guzman envisions the emergence of WTO agreements on labor or competition policy that would be patterned after the TRIPs Agreement.157 In its maximal form, Guzman's expansionist vision would effect the transformation of the WTO into a "World Economic Organization."158

Yet Guzman's ambitious proposal is vulnerable to a number of criticisms. First is the issue of money. Even if one assumes that Members will be able to secure the necessary political capital, will they be able to afford the huge financial and human resources needed to establish such departments? The budget forecast on this point seems especially gloomy when one considers that the WTO's total budget is currently less than the travel budget of the IMF.159

Second, Guzman seems to rely heavily on the success of the Uruguay Round, especially on the creation of TRIPs. However, it should be remembered that the Uruguay Round's "single package" deal was possible mainly because it reflected the principle of "comparative advantage" between the North and the South. In other words, the South was willing to tolerate new accords relating to services and intellectual property, areas in which the North holds a comparative advantage, in exhange for further liberalization in the area of agriculture and textiles, in which the South holds its own comparative advantage. By contrast, Guzman's regulatory bargaining scheme is based not on such a principled trajectory but on blatant quid pro quo deals that tend to favor politically powerful countries. Yet what if a Member has nothing to offer? Is it realistic to assume that such a Member would actually be excluded from the bargaining process, as Guzman's approach would seem to suggest? Would that be a desirable result? And what about the reality that small, poor countries have very few personnel and other resources to devote to these complicated bargains?160

Third, the "regulatory model," which attempts to harmonize or universalize regulatory standards within the WTO, has proven vulnerable to attack on many fronts. In addressing the problem of covert protectionism, for example, McGinnis and Movsesian reject the regulatory model on the following grounds: universal regulatory standards do not fit all countries, it is vulnerable to capture by powerful interest groups, regulatory competition is desirable, universal standards are likely to result in a race to the bottom, and international spillover disputes exceed the institutional capacity as well as the legitimacy of the WTO.161 McGinnis and Movsesian do view reciprocal bargaining as the "engine" of the WTO regime in that it yields incentives for free trade supporters to counteract protectionist groups in the domestic political dynamics.162 Moreover, they attribute the success of the Uruguay Round to its structure as a single undertaking in which North and South were able to engage in such reciprocal bargaining.163 Yet in contrast to "political bargaining," they object to "regulatory bargains" in the context of regulatory models such as that proposed by Guzman on the ground that it is too vulnerable to interest group capture, among other concerns.164

Fourth, Guzman's approach seeks to take advantage of the well-functioning WTO dispute settlement system in order to enhance the level of compliance with regulatory agreements. Yet apart from the daunting logistical challenges associated with finding qualified experts, Guzman's approach would inundate the WTO system with a category of disputes highly resistant to settlement. For instance, what if certain poor countries repeatedly violated regulatory agreements due to a lack of financial and technical capability? It does not seem realistic or even prudent to resolve such cases in an adjudicative mode. Indeed, if Member countries anticipate the prospect of adjudication in the future, their levels of commitment to and concessions in the negotiating process are likely to be low.

Chantai Thomas takes a rather eclectic position vis--vis Guzman's approach. Although he also prioritizes legislation over adjudication in addressing linkage issues, particularly labor and environmental protection, Thomas acknowledges that legislation in the form of separate, stand-alone agreements carries in its negotiation process certain costs and risks-including "specification costs" incurred in determining "core" labor or environmental standards as well as "capture" and "strategic holdout."165 Thomas's response to these problems is a softer form of legislation: an amendment of the list of general exceptions under GATT Article XX to incorporate certain international labor and environmental principles.166 Notwithstanding its comparatively modest dimensions, Thomas' approach still seems unworkable considering that it is nearly as difficult to secure an amendment under the WTO system as it is to produce new legislation.167 Moreover, an amendment carries the same costs and risks as stand-alone legislative agreements in that WTO Members would still need to agree on which principles should be referenced in Article XX. The devil is always in the details.

By contrast, harmonization under the WTO can be achieved more effectively through preexisting built-in legislative arrangements than through the creation of new ones. The WTO system has already launched two important side agreements, the SPS168 and the TBT,169 in order to supplement and complement GATT-particularly Article XX. The Preamble of SPS states that it desires to "elaborate rules for the application of the provisions of GATT 1994 which relate to the use of sanitary or phytosanitary measures, in particular the provisions of Article XX(b)."170 Likewise, the Preamble of TBT states that it desires to "further the objectives of GATT 1994."171 The most distinctive feature in these two agreements vis--vis GATT is an absence of the type of dichotomy that characterized GATTs pro-trade bias. The preambles of both agreements emphasize that no Members should be prevented from taking necessary measures to protect social values such as human health or the environment. Moreover, these legitimate regulatory concerns are no longer marginalized as mere "exceptions," but have been redefined as "rights." For instance, SPS Article 2 specifies that Members have the right to take sanitary measures necessary for the protection of human health. At the same time, both agreements overcome the lacunae in GATT Article XX by providing for an extensive and flexible clause dealing with legitimate regulatory objectives. In other words, SPS applies to all sanitary and phytosanitary measures, which are defined broadly in Annex A of the WTO Agreement. In the same context, TBT covers technical regulations adopted pursuant to any legitimate policy objective.

Although they grant enhanced status to social regulatory concerns, it cannot be argued that these agreements are biased in favor of them. Rather, they prudently provide many obligations related to free trade considerations in order to avoid such bias. Therefore, while they emphasize the rights of Members to take necessary regulations to achieve their legitimate policy objectives, the agreements also stipulate that such regulations "do not create unnecessary obstacles to international trade"172 and that they remain "subject to the requirement that [they] are not applied in a manner which would constitute a means of arbitrary or unjustifiable discrimination."173 In addition, both agreements contain numerous provisions, many of which are similar to those of GATT. The subtle equilibrium between trade and social concerns featured in these agreements constitutes a major improvement over GATT, which to this day retains a lingering pro-trade bias due to the structural dichotomy discussed above.

Harmonization, which is the basic approach that both SPS and TBT employ in dealing with linkage, is a positive prescription. In this sense it contrasts with the negative prescription observed in the jurisprudence related to GATT Articles III and XX. Whereas the latter focuses on negative obligations that prohibit discrimination and other market access restrictions, the former concerns positive obligations that aim at the assimilation or convergence of substantive or procedural aspects of different domestic regulations. Normally, harmonization connotes legislative initiatives on substantive regulations or standards.174 In this respect, both SPS and TBT encourage Members to align their domestic regulations in various ways to internationally recognized standards. Because these international standards, no matter how representative they may be in certain specific regulatory sectors, are adopted outside the WTO, they are nonbinding. Nonetheless, both agreements offer legal incentives to Members in order to further voluntary compliance with nonbinding norms. For example, under SPS, if a Member bases its sanitary regulation on the Codex Alimentarius, one of the international standards that SPS endorses, it is presumed to comply with the relevant provisions of both SPS and GATT. International standards will be discussed below in greater detail.

Yet both SPS and TBT give much more weight to circumstances in which Members do not rely on international standards than those in which Members do. There are a couple of reasons for this situation. First, the use of international standards is nonbinding and voluntary because they are not formal treaties legislated under the banner of the WTO. Therefore, Members retain the right to take any necessary measures, whether based on the relevant international standards or not, to achieve other legitimate objectives such as protection of human health and safety. second, in many cases these standards are nonexistent. Even where they do exist, they tend still to be evolving, often taking the form of a lowest common denominator, and thus fall short of the regulatory expectations of Members accustomed to exercising a higher level of regulatory protection in similar situations encountered at the domestic level. These circumstances tend to lead both SPS and TBT to focus on "process-oriented" disciplines, rather than on substantive disciplines involving international standards. In other words, these agreements concern "how to regulate," rather than "what to regulate." This "manner-oriented" approach parallels the "chapeau test" recently found in the WTO jurisprudence and constitutes a keystone in addressing linkage problems within the context of SPS and TBT because the approach enables Members to retain their regulatory autonomy while minimizing the trade-restrictive effects of their regulations. It does so by ensuring administrative due process in such areas as risk assessment, consistency, transparency, and reason giving. Therefore, as David Victor observes, these due process disciplines focus on "convergence in procedures" but not necessarily "convergence in particular regulatory outcomes.'"1''5 In this sense, both SPS and TBT constitute a form of quasi-harmonization.

3. Surveillance

Trade disputes are not brewed overnight. Rather, trade frictions usually precede the outbreak of full-fledged disputes. Once a dispute is announced, registered, and adjudicated, it is very easy for it to escalate beyond the control of the parties. Therefore, if frictions can be diffused before they reach the level of disputes, much time, energy and expense will be saved. Trade disputes related to linkage issues are no exception. This is why a surveillance and monitoring mechanism such as the Trade Policy Review Mechanism is required.176

The TPRM periodically reviews Member countries' trade policies and trade-related regulatory policies for the "improved adherence by all Members to rules, disciplines and commitments"177 under the WTO system. For this purpose, each Member is required to report its trade policies and practices on a regular basis to the Trade Policy Review Body, which is another name for the WTO General Council.178 The TPRM is basically a "peer review" process,179 rather than an enforcement mechanism. Thanks to the managerial nature of this process, Members can fine-tune both their trade and trade-related regulatory policies to address the interface between free trade and state regulation in an inconspicuous yet effective fashion. This may be accomplished through informal discussion and deliberation free from undue escalation and politicization.180

4. International Standards and Government Networks

As discussed above, harmonization through international standards, no matter how soft those standards may be from the perspective of legal force, could be a way of addressing linkage issues in certain areas since it would enable adopting Members to achieve the dual goals of free trade and regulatory protection. In fact, both TBT and SBS expressly require Member States to use international standards to the maximum extent possible, as well as to participate vigorously in standard-setting activities.181 In addition, both TBT and SBS give a burden of proof incentive to any Member State that bases its regulation on international standards.182 Furthermore, as an obvious indication of their role in encouraging transgovernmental cooperation for regulatory harmonization, both TBT and SBS co-opt certain international regulatory institutions including the International Organization for Standardization ("ISO"),183 the International Electrotechnical Commission ("IEC"),184 and the "Codex Alimentarius Commission."185 These co-opted regulatory institutions serve as shells for transgovernmental cooperation under the auspices of TBT and SPS.

Nevertheless, the effectiveness of the standards set forth in such agreements has often been questioned. While international standards may reflect certain professional values since they are crafted by qualified experts, the domestic administrative and political procedures involved in actually recognizing, accrediting, and finally adopting these standards tend to be more complicated than they first appear. We often see that political anxiety surrounding a certain regulatory area is allowed to trump scientific evidence. The public tends to react emotionally and excessively to a scandalous event such as an outbreak of mad cow disease. When confronting such situations, governments usually respond by pandering to public concern and strengthening regulations, rather than by educating the public in a manner that reduces excessive fear. Moreover, as human health and safety command greater political attention, consensus becomes harder than ever to achieve, even among the professionals charged with developing the standards.186

Notwithstanding these misgivings about international standards, the importance of close cooperation and communication among epistemic, likeminded regulators, which many scholars define as "networking,"187 should not be trivialized. Although very few government networks produce visible regulations in the form of standards or guidelines, networking itself tends to contribute to the achievement of regulatory objectives because regulators learn from and enlighten one another in the process of communicating and exchanging views. In particular, if regulatory networking is conducted under the auspices of the WTO, in a manner that takes into account the subtle interface between regulatory and trade issues, it could potentially provide a reliable way of addressing some linkage issues. Admittedly, networking does not deliver a readymade solution to the linkage problem as a whole. Yet networking certainly can ease the tension arising from linkage phenomena on an incremental basis because everyday regulators who are educated in the networking process can modify and adapt their regulatory behaviors-again, on an incremental scale-toward a better approach to reconciling the tension. Even if such networking is obstructed by complicated political processes, whether between North and South or within North or South, its forum-making function will at least contribute to increasing transparency in the WTO's policy-making process as well as to enhancing the level of policy coordination among states, as seen in the example of the WTO Committee on Trade and Environment ("CTE").188

The case for the aforementioned "soft" approach, vis--vis the "hard" approach represented by formal negotiations and legislation, becomes stronger in light of the reality of current WTO negotiations. First, developing countries have already officially "de-link[ed]" labor from trade by nailing down a firm statement in Ministerial Declarations that the International Labor Organization ("ILO") is the competent body for handling this issue, and that the use of labor standards for protectionist purposes should be prohibited.189 Moreover, it seems unlikely that linkage issues would be addressed within the WTO through hard mechanisms such as legislation (treaty making) or amendment, at least in the near future. The fact that developed countries finally agreed, albeit reluctantly, to drop three of four "Singapore issues" from the Doha Round negotiation supports such a forecast.190 Singapore issues-in other words, competition, investment, government procurement, and trade facilitation-were originally tabled and accepted as a potential negotiation agenda by developed countries in the first WTO Ministerial Conference in 1996.191 Since that time they have haunted subsequent WTO negotiations. Frequently invoked by developed countries as red herrings to counteract the demands of developing countries to repeal agricultural subsidies, the Singapore Issues eventually sunk the fifth Ministerial Conference in Cancun in 2003.192 Yet during negotiations conducted under the Doha Round-which is often dubbed the "development round"-rich countries finally agreed to jettison competition and investment issues while at the same time repealing or reducing agricultural subsidies. Based on this case, it seems strategic linkages are not likely to happen, at least in the foreseeable future. Under these circumstances, a calm, modest yet incrementally effective approach to linkage, using soft law and cooperative networking, seems to be more suitable than a hard, politically driven approach involving formal negotiations and legislation.

Importantly, networking need not be conducted solely within the WTO. The WTO is still a trade organization. The fact that the WTO should faithfully listen and respond to legitimate demands of linkage does not mean that it should metamorphose into something other than a trade organization. No matter how successful it has been as a trade organization, the WTO should not become a victim of its own success by seeking to accommodate all other nontrade issues under its own roof. Moreover, the WTO is not an island in the international community.193 Diverse international institutional arrangements may lend the WTO their more flexible, yet focused hands to address linkages issues in a variety of ways, degrees, and contexts.

Indeed, regulatory networking often takes place in softer institutional settings than the WTO, such as the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development ("OECD") or Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation ("APEC"). The institutional flexibility represented by the informality and nonbinding nature of these organizations can encourage participants to explore solutions to various linkage scenarios through the application of soft law (recommendations, standards, and guidelines), without the burden of legal commitments and the associated practice of strategic filibustering.194 In fact, both organizations are currently devoting considerable resources to addressing various linkage issues. Under APEC, both regulators (public) and regulatees (private) engage in close epistemic networking with one another on sector-specific linkage issues such as trade and human safety, thereby producing realistic guidelines and arrangements.195 Empirical confirmation of this process exists in such forms as the Guidelines for the Preparation, Adoption, and Review of Technical Regulations and APEC Food Mutual Recognition Agreements ("MRA").196

Under the OECD, linkage issues are addressed in the context of "regulatory reform."197 This project is a policy response to the belief that modern governments should secure better regulations while not yielding to trade barriers.198 A comprehensive 1997 Report on Regulatory Reform strongly recommended the use of soft law, in the form of "internationally harmoni[z]ed standards," to solve the linkage dilemma.199 In parallel with this Report, the OECD Program on Public Management and Governance ("PUMA") has been hosting the Regulatory Management and Reform Network that consists of government officials responsible for regulatory management and reform activities in Member countries.200

In a propitious move, an APEC-OECD Agreement on Joint Work on Regulatory Reform was initiated in 2000. The Joint Work aims to implement OECD and APEC principles by elaborating an APEC-OECD "Integrated Checklist" for self-assessment on linkage issues, such as "regulatory, competition and market openness policies."201

In sum, this softer approach to linkage tends to emphasize that linkage issues are better "managed" than "solved." After countries have built up sufficient confidence and consensus following a lengthy rehearsal process, they may ratchet up to a harder, more official forum such as the WTO. Put differently, current circumstances suggest that osmosis seems to work better than compulsion.

5. Interinstitutional Cooperation

The WTO's institutional identity as a trade organization naturally leads it to addressing various linkage issues by cooperating in various ways with sectorspecific international regulatory organizations. Scholars acknowledge the importance of this interinstitutional relationship. Robert Howse argues that we should try to shape the trade rules and their interpretations to capture the "interaction[s]" of the trading system with other institutions, rather than attempt to decide what should be "in" or "out of the mandate of the WTO.202 This argument reflects David Leebron's idea of "regime linkage," which describes possible interactions between regimes that are created to govern specific regulatory issues.203

The intensity of such interinstitutional cooperation varies according to the circumstances presented by each linkage phenomenon. One encounters both mild and intense interinstitutional relationships between the WTO and other international regulatory agencies. In terms of mild institutional relationships, which call to mind the aforementioned patterns of networking, the Doha Declaration explicitly set a negotiation agenda for "regular information exchange" between the MEAs' secretariats and the CTE as well as the MEAs' "observer status" in the CTE.204 In implementing this agenda, Members have recently agreed on the observer status, albeit on an ad hoc basis, of the United Nations Environmental Program ("UNEP") and the following six MEAs: the Basel Convention on Transboundary Movement of Hazardous Waste, the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Flora and Fauna ("CITES"), the Convention on Biodiversity ("CBD"), the Montreal Protocol on Ozone-depleting Substances, the International Tropical Timber Organization ("ITTO"), and the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change ("UNFCCC").205 This institutional cooperation between the WTO's CTE and MEAs can make a major contribution to ensuring "coherence" between trade and environmental policies,206 thereby mitigating the tension between free trade and environmental protection in the long run.

Yet it is difficult in practice to forge robust relationships among organizations. Although the WTO has several "cooperation agreements" with other international organizations such as the IMF,207 the practical value of such agreements has been questionable because the level of involvement of these organizations in the WTO, at least in terms of regulatory cooperation, has not been impressive. Several factors may explain this lack of cooperation. First, the WTO's scant budget tends to discourage serious interinstitutional engagement, which inevitably requires considerable resources and investment. second, networks linking domestic and international bureaucrats working in trade and other social policy areas are not well developed. Because bureaucrats or policymakers from each trade sector or nontrade social policy area tend to represent their own values, a coherent forum to bring these disparate views together in one place is unlikely to emerge on its own. Rather, such a forum must be created, which inevitably involves the commitment of considerable institutional resources. Finally, difficult problems of jurisdiction and competence are likely to cloud any serious effort at resolving the linkage dilemma. Indeed, the question of what institution should be the final arbiter as to a particular subject matter extends well beyond the terrain of cooperation to the constitutional dimension.

It could be the case that the WTO's "unilateral" adoption of certain regulatory decisions by other international agencies, in the form of "cooptation," will work better than the infeasible forms of institutional cooperation discussed above. Originally, the concept of co-optation derives from the field of corporations. Co-optation represents a process of incorporating new elements into the policymaking structure of an organization in order to overcome challenges to its stability.208 Considering the mounting tension between trade and social values, which has the potential to undermine the legitimacy of the global trading system, it seems not only plausible but also necessary for the WTO to absorb certain sector-specific regulatory elements into its operation. In this connection, it is worthwhile to note that the WTO's two important linkage agreements, SPS and TBT, were modeled after the EU's harmonization rules and practices, in particular the New Approach and the Global Approach.209

Another interesting channel of co-optation is the WTO tribunal. As a matter of fact, a panel organized under the old GATT sought a regulatory opinion from other international regulatory institutions in adjudicating a trade case before it. Specifically, the panel in the Thailand-Restrictions on Importation of and Internal Taxes on Cigarettes case referred to the World Health Organization ("WHO") the question of whether the Thai government's ban on Western cigarettes could be justified to protect human health. Although the panel eventually dismissed the WHO's professional regulatory opinion, this case provides a strong precedent for future judicial co-optation within the context of the GATT dispute settlement procedure. The DSU subsequently provided a textual ground for such judicial co-optation in the form of the stipulation that "[pjanels may seek information from any relevant source and may consult experts to obtain their opinion on certain aspects of the matter."210 It is not difficult for international regulatory institutions to be interpreted as falling under the rubric of "any relevant source." At the same time, regulatory decisions co-opted by panels and the Appellate Body from other international agencies need not bind