Acceso usuarios
Ronnie R.F. Yearwood
There is without a doubt a growing academic and popular literature about the World Trade Organization (WTO), and more broadly international trade law. Reading Patterson and Afilalo, I came away with the feeling that, given time, this book may be one of those books that straddle both worlds. Given that there is often a divide between academic and popular works, I think that this is a work which should be welcomed. It is well written and, importantly for a book that could cross over into a wider market than academia, it reads with the ease of a story. Patterson and Afilalo deserve credit for being good storytellers. They weave a seamless story about the changing nature of the state and the corresponding changes in the international trading system. Crediting Philip Bobbitt they posit that the fall of communism in 1989 was not the Fukuyama �end of history� so much as the start of the �market state�. They argue that, as the state can no longer promise to protect its citizens from external attack, the strategic ground of its legitimacy is changing (at Chapter 1). It also cannot meet its welfare function of maintaining legal regimes for the enhancement of wealth, protection, or health. Therefore the �State is moving from a regime of (legal) entitlements to one of incentives� the writers argue (at 6). The state in its current form has lost control over what were generally seen as domestic issues, such as wealth transfer and protection of property. They argue that understanding the current global trading system lies in being able to explain the relationship between the state and global trade. For example, they argue that globalization was not simply a result of the technological communications revolution. They write that �the establishment of comparative advantage as the normative foundation of �
