Let’s Agree to Disagree: A Strategy for Trade-Security

Deliberation of trade security is crucial for maintaining multilateral coordination and enabling governments, businesses, and individuals to navigate global economic networks. World Trade Organization (WTO) members’ mounting invocations of security-based trade restrictiveness increasingly challenge an institution that requires persistent coordination and transparency to function. WTO members need space to discuss—and disagree with—the intersection of security and trade policies. While members make use of existing WTO institutions and procedures, the exceptionalism and secrecy of security hinder notification, and review of security-rooted trade practices. This article provides a descriptive analysis and prescriptions for WTO institutional techniques for addressing members’ security-related measures daily—that is, on a routine basis, via trade policy review and WTO notification processes. It shows that the trade community already possess the tools to manage the growing issue-area of trade and security.