Conceptualizing Security Exceptions: Legal Doctrine or Political Excuse?

The dominant world political theory for international engagement has long been Realism, where state power and state interests are viewed as determining the limits on state relations. Increasingly, however, new theories have emerged to assist our understanding of how and why states interact in a global setting dominated by international institutions and their antecedent agreements. This is no more apparent than in the field of international economic relations under the control of the World Trade Organization. Using political and legal theories, this essay explores whether WTO security exceptions are legal doctrines or political excuses and how this informs our present, and possibly future, understanding of international state interaction. , Oxford University Press.