Cambridge International Trade and Economic Law: Series Number 7: The Law and Politics of WTO Waivers: Stability and Flexibility in Public International Law

Despite being an important legal instrument in the law of the WTO, the waiver has hitherto been the subject of little scholarly analysis. Isabel Feichtner fills this gap by challenging the conventional view that the WTO's political bodies do not engage in significant law-making. She systemises the GATT and WTO waiver practice and suggests a typology of waivers as individual exception, general exception and rule-making instruments. She also presents the procedural and substantive legal requirements for the granting of waivers, deals with questions of judicial review and interpretation of waiver decisions, and clarifies the waiver's potential and limits for addressing the need for flexibility and adaptability in public international law and WTO law in particular. By connecting the analysis of waiver competence and waiver practice to the general stability/flexibility challenge in public international law, the book sheds new light on the WTO, international institutions and international law.

1. Why study the WTO waiver?; Part I. The Flexibility Challenge in Public International Law and the WTO in Particular: 2. The flexibility challenge in public international law; 3. The WTO - public law of conflict management; Part II. The Practice and Law of Waivers: 4. The waiver power and practice under the GATT 1947 and in the WTO; 5. The law of waivers; Part III. The Potential of Waivers to Address the Flexibility Challenge in Public International Law: 6. The potential of the waiver as a flexibility device; 7. The politics of the waiver process; 8. Conclusion.