Fragmentation and Utopia: Towards an Equitable Integration of Finance, Trade, and Sustainable Development
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Description
The aspiration to equity, providing to each his or her due, is inseparable from the utopian idea. We can help to achieve more equitable outcomes through better appreciating of the elements of equity implicit or sometimes explicit in the existing rules of international law, interpreting and applying them together with or in light of other norms of international law, such as those entrenched in the UN Human Rights Covenants. The World Trade Organization (WTO) rules on exchange actions and balance-of-payments justifications for trade restrictions clearly reflect a conception of equity that takes into account the particular needs and situations of developing countries. A realistic utopia implies fully recognizing that equitable considerations are not narrow exceptions to technocratic governance of finance, or merely a form of aspirational rhetoric or soft law, but are central to the task of an international financial system embedded in the general project of international law. In the way that WTO dispute-settlement organs have interpreted the provisions in question, especially as they relate to developing countries, equity understood as differential treatment has too often been marginalized or even dismissed.
Source Publication
Realizing Utopia: The Future of International Law
Source Editors/Authors
Antonio Cassese
Publication Date
2012
Recommended Citation
Howse, Robert L., "Fragmentation and Utopia: Towards an Equitable Integration of Finance, Trade, and Sustainable Development" (2012). Faculty Chapters. 852.
https://gretchen.law.nyu.edu/fac-chapt/852
