IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/cup/wotrrv/v15y2016i01p25-49_00.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Designing the Multilateral Trading System: Voting Equality at the International Trade Organization

Author

Listed:
  • KAYA, AYSE

Abstract

Through detailed archival analysis, this paper examines states' voting rights and representation in the International Trade Organization (ITO), which remains an under-analyzed aspect of the post-war multilateral trading system. The paper shows that the US designers of the ITO preferred and pursued formal voting equality because they reasoned it served the institution's intended functions and purposes better than weighted voting. But, as the negotiations undermined US priorities, particularly on balance of payment (BOP) questions, the designers presented a proposal for mirroring the IMF's weighted voting at the ITO. They, however, returned to their original proposal of voting equality when the ultimate draft of the ITO reflected their key preferences without resorting to weighted voting. By closely tracing the drafters' thinking throughout the evolution of the negotiations, the paper contributes to understanding the design of multilateral institutions as well as US behavior in the creation of the post-war multilateral system.

Suggested Citation

  • Kaya, Ayse, 2016. "Designing the Multilateral Trading System: Voting Equality at the International Trade Organization," World Trade Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 15(1), pages 25-49, January.
    • Handle: RePEc:cup:wotrrv:v:15:y:2016:i:01:p:25-49_00
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.cambridge.org/core/product/identifier/S1474745615000506/type/journal_article
    File Function: link to article abstract page
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Shamel Azmeh, 2024. "Developing Countries and Joint Statement Initiatives at the WTO: Damned if You Join, Damned if You Don't?," Development and Change, International Institute of Social Studies, vol. 55(3), pages 375-397, May.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:cup:wotrrv:v:15:y:2016:i:01:p:25-49_00. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Kirk Stebbing (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.cambridge.org/wtr .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.