We Have Never Been 'Multilateral': Consensus Discourse in International Trade Law

In international economic law circles, it has become common to speak of a ‘crisis of multilateralism’ and of the threatened collapse of the post-World War II international consensus on trade policy. This talk of crisis has been spurred in particular by the US’s blocking of appointments to the WTO Appellate Body, which, as a result, ceased to be quorate in December 2019. While this is a difficult time for the WTO, this chapter argues that to refer to the present moment as a ‘crisis of multilateralism’ does more than simply describe the collective political and economic forces that are buffeting the organization. It is also a discourse that actively works to shape our understanding of the world, depicting the WTO as the institutional embodiment of an imagined past in which there was broad consensus on how to manage the international economy for the good of all (i.e. a past in which ‘multilateralism’ existed), in contrast with a present in which fragmentation reigns, rogue actors flout collective norms in pursuit of their own self-interests, and the WTO is ineffective in reining in their behavior. This chapter seeks to highlight the political effects of the ‘crisis of multilateralism’ discourse, and to challenge the implied narrative that there was ever a time in which states had turned away from bilateralism, rejected ‘self-help’, or achieved consensus around a set of universal values in the world of trade policy. Instead, it argues that the ‘crisis of multilateralism’ narrative evokes a universalist rhetoric that obscures the strong disagreement that has always existed regarding the substantive content of international economic norms, and throws a cloak of legitimacy over rules designed to further particular, contestable interests.