International Law

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The Place of the WTO and

its Law in the International

Legal Order

Pascal Lamy*

I am particularly honoured by your invitation to this Second Biennial Conference of

the European Society of International Law. Indeed, I am both honoured and

pleased, not only because I am in Paris, but above all because I support the ESIL

project, one of the objectives of which is to develop a deeper understanding of trade

law and to promote closer cooperation among all those working in the field of international

law.

Admittedly, I have only distant memories of the Hague Academy of International

Law where I once worked on estoppel, but the general theme of this conference –

International Law: Do We Need It? – convinced me that there was room, this

evening, for a non-specialist. It is in that capacity that I will be speaking to you, in

the hope that I can contribute the views of a practitioner on the role and place of

WTO law within the international legal order. In doing so, I am seeking to establish

a constructive dialogue between doctrine and practice with the aim of

improving normative and institutional coherence within the international legal

order.

Trade is to be found at the origin of entire segments of public international law, and

it accounts for one of its main sources: the treaty. Indeed, one of the first international

legal instruments to leave a trace in history was the commercial treaty between

Amenophis IV and the King of Alasia (Cyprus) in the 14th century BC. This treaty

exempted Cypriot traders from customs duty in exchange for the importation of a certain

quantity of copper and wood. Nothing has fundamentally changed since then: at

the beginning of the 21st century we still have bilateral trade agreements. But they

now have to be reported to the WTO, so that they may be checked for consistency...