The name is absent

relations among modern nation states have not been based on military conquest but rely on cooperation
secured through diplomatic persuasion.

The system of cooperation works within a skeletal framework of norms. The framework,
however, leaves ample room for differences of views about fairness relating to such matters as the market
access arrangements of trading partners, or their commercial practices, or even their different social
standards as these affect trade. It is fairness in this context of inter-governmental trade relations, now
greatly expanded to include numerous developing countries, that we address here.

We should note that our focus means that we do not directly address one other aspect of fairness
relating to trade policies, namely, the internal distributional effects of these policies. It is certainly an
important matter for domestic public policy that trade negotiations give rise to winners and losers within
national economies. In this paper, we assume that these distributional issues will influence the
negotiating stances of governments and affect their perceptions of fairness. In this way, they are part of
our discussion of fairness in inter-governmental trade relations.

We take as a premise that, since membership in a system of cooperation like the GATT/WTO is
voluntary, its rules and procedures rest on mutual consent. In the context of discussing fairness, this is a
crucial characteristic. That is, unless there is a consensus about the fairness of the rules and procedures in
the trading system, countries will not willingly abide by them indefinitely. Fairness is therefore an
element in the existence and functioning of the system.

Such a system of cooperation is, to be sure, only approximated in reality. The powerful are more
able to press for the adoption of rules and procedures that suit them, while the weak are more often
obliged to compromise. It can be argued that, since participation is voluntary, no country need accept the
negotiated outcomes if it believes that these run counter to its interests. But that is not necessarily so,
since rejection would entail withdrawal from membership in the GATT/WTO altogether. A country
would then lose all the rights embodied in the GATT/WTO regime, such as MFN treatment and the
protections afforded by the dispute-settlement mechanism. Thus, there may be circumstances in which a
country may emerge worse off from a round of negotiations, yet to find it has no choice but to accept the

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