Conclusion

Summary

GATT’s history revises ideas about international organizations, trade in international relations, and the liberal global order. Although the USA and EEC receive the most attention in GATT studies, leadership was fluid and opportunistic and the engagement of small and mid-sized members sustained GATT s momentum and legitimacy. The secretariat was proactive in promoting trade liberalization and cooperation, whereas GATT members emphasized rights above obligations and pursued their economic interests in ways that were not always compatible with liberal trade practices. Reactions to GATT and trade liberalization were polarized and divisive. Not only does trade produce winners and losers, but some people had faith in the liberal promise and associated GATT with fairness, rules, and inclusive prosperity, whereas others feared it as a destructive agent of globalization that would cause domestic upheaval and undermine national autonomy. As for the liberal order, it was made up of national and international ideas and priorities that both pushed against and reinforced one another. Despite the presumption of liberalism s universal applicability, the liberal trade order was conservative, privileging some nations, some sectors of the economy, and some people over others. But because GATT retained a normative authority, members never rejected it entirely.