Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-gbm5v Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-14T22:30:42.505Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

11 - “Going Public”: Reasoning and Justification at the World Trade Court

from Part II - Public Reason in International Courts and Tribunals

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 May 2020

Silje A. Langvatn
Affiliation:
University of Bergen and University of Oslo
Mattias Kumm
Affiliation:
New York University and WZB Berlin
Wojciech Sadurski
Affiliation:
University of Sydney and University of Warsaw
Get access

Summary

As international courts come to play an ever more significant role in global governance, their traditional source of legitimacy embedded in state consent seems no longer sufficient, and additional grounds are needed to sustain their claims for legitimacy. Focusing on the World Trade Organization dispute settlement system (WTO DSS), this chapter recounts the attempts of the adjudicators in a key site of global judicial governance to draw on public reason as one possible way to address their pressing legitimacy gap by ensuring that their own decisions, as well as the states’ decisions they are called upon to review, are the result of reasons and forms of reasoning that can be reasonably understood and accepted to all the subjects affected. In unfolding the WTO DSS’s effort to “go public,” the chapter aims to illustrate the different forms in which the idea of public reason can be said to apply to international courts, as well as to develop a better understanding of the promise and limitations embedded in the concept of public reason as a means for international courts to enhance their legitimacy given their unique features and the pluralistic global setting in which they operate.

Type
Chapter
Information
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2020

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure no-reply@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×