John Ruggie’s work on embedded liberalism reimagines the nature of the GATT regime as a set of rules that pursue a multilateral solution to the problems of international trade whilst leaving policy space for GATT ‘members’ to implement domestic social policy agendas. Ruggie’s vision of the GATT was not static, but predicted how conflicts between the multilateral objective and domestic autonomy embedded in the GATT rules would strain the rules’ efficacy to the point where regulatory change would become inevitable. In essence, Ruggie’s work on embedded liberalism was also a story of how, and under what circumstances international trade rules fail and how new rules emerge. Smith argues that Ruggie’s work is more nuanced than the conventional story of why rules fail. However, she suggests that even Ruggie’s account of regulatory failure may miss some key issues. She argues that, whilst looking into the past at why rules fail, the historical account is often regarded as a true and factual account of the politics, the trade negotiators’ concerns and the way law worked of the time. Suggestions for changes to the rules based on this ‘known’ and ‘accepted’ past therefore are in danger of filtering the past through concerns in the present. Opportunities for further exploration and the potential discovery of new ways of thinking about the problems of the present and how to move forward are missed therefore. Smith suggests how these problems arise and how they might be alleviated in the context of international agricultural trade.