Reasons, Institutions, Authorities

Abstract

This chapter examines the logic of exceptions in World Trade Organization (WTO) law, and their relation to the reasons that apply to members, and to the authority of WTO law and adjudicators. Many exceptions can be understood as qualifying rules, in order that those rules should better track the reasons that apply to those subject to them. However, others are better explained as reflecting the limits of law’s authority: at least sometimes, exceptions identify areas wherein the law falls silent, not because its subjects necessarily have reasons to act otherwise than in accordance with the unqualified rule, but rather because they have good claims to decide for themselves whether they should so act. Joseph Raz’s service conception of authority is applied to develop an account of the grounds, scope, and limits of WTO law’s authority, which account is in turn applied to explain three specific sets of exceptions or quasi-exceptions: the GATT Article XX General Exceptions, the trade remedies rules, and the ‘non-exception-exceptions’ for domestic regulation deviating from international standards.