A 'practical critical' approach to balancing trade liberalisation and domestic regulatory autonomy in the World Trade Organization

Abstract

This dissertation sets out a 'practical critical' approach to analysing international trade law - specifically the law of the World Trade Organization - that utilises insights from social theory that allow us to understand how the power of actors to (i) change or maintain the structures, in this case the legal structure and (ii) use systems of meaning to maintain relations of domination, again in this case through law. It uses the morphogenetic theory of Margaret Archer and the ideology theory of John B Thompson. After outlining these theories, this dissertation uses the 'practical critical' approach to analyses the international regulation of goods, services, and intellectual property, specifically in terms of how the approach explains how the current balance between domestic regulatory autonomy and trade liberalisation was reached.