Blurring regime boundaries: uneven legalization of non‐trade concerns in the WTO

Purpose – The regulatory reach of the international trade regime beyond its own boundaries is attracting increasing scholarly and political attention as the World Trade Organization (WTO) is expected to reconcile free trade with concerns related to public health, environmental and labour issues or intellectual property rights. This paper aims to investigate to what extent and why the degree of legalization of non‐trade concerns in the WTO varies across issue areas. Design/methodology/approach – The paper first assesses the degree of legalization (in terms of obligation, delegation and precision) for technical (phyto) sanitary, environmental, intellectual property and labour standards. It then adopts a neoliberal institutionalist perspective to account for the uneven legalization across issue areas. Findings – The paper shows that legalization is strong for intellectual property rights, moderate for public health and environmental matters and weak for labour issues. It is argued that legalization is uneven because of members' (divergent) preferences regarding the regulation of non‐trade concerns and because of certain institutional aspects of the WTO. Originality/value – The paper shows that it cannot be assumed that the WTO is a highly legalized trade regime, implying an even legalization across issue areas. It hopes to contribute to three strands in international relations literature: standard setting, legalization and “regime complexity”, a debate which deals with the interaction between partially overlapping, not hierarchically ordered international regimes.