The Hidden World of WTO Governance: A Reply to Andrew Lang and Joanne Scott

EJIL (2009), Vol. 20 No. 4, 1063–1071 doi: 10.1093/ejil/chp099 In ‘The Hidden World of WTO Governance’, Andrew Lang and Joanne Scott rightly identify WTO committees as an understudied site of WTO governance. Their analysis deploys frameworks based largely on the sociology of global technocracy, lenses which bring into focus WTO behaviour not usually given much consideration, yet their description and analysis are incomplete, for they miss the central role of states as principals directing the activities of their representatives on the committees, as well as the power politics within and around WTO committees. Only by also considering the state, state interests, the relative power of states engaged in committee deliberation, and WTO committee participants as government representatives can we more fully understand and assess WTO committees as sites of governance.