Consent-Filtered Multilateralism And The Transformation Of Global Economic Law: India’s Recalibration Of Trade And Investment Governance
Shweta Chowdhery, Doctoral Fellow, University School of Law and Legal Studies, Guru Gobind Singh Indraprastha University, Dwarka, Delhi.
ABSTRACT
Consent-Filtered Multilateralism and the Transformation of Global Economic Law looks at the way states interact with international economic law by not committing or rejecting legal obligations but by selectively accepting them. The idea of Consent-Filtered Multilateralism describes a systematic procedure by which states assess international rules in terms of their power to make international rules, to incorporate them into law, and to adjudicate international disputes. It is indicative of a wider shift in the global economic governance whereby the legitimacy of obligations is becoming more and more reliant on the procedural pathways by which they are generated and internalised.
It is against this backdrop that the article answers a key puzzle why states are willing to make some economic commitments and unwilling to make functionally equivalent commitments in trade and investment regimes. Current explanations based on fragmentation, bargaining strategy or sovereignty are not adequate because they do not explain this patterned selectivity. The article states that the more profound problem is that post- consensual governance has emerged whereby rule production gains political power prior to gaining formal legal legitimacy.
The article is methodologically based on a doctrinal-analytical approach based on WTO constitutional provisions, investment treaty design, and arbitral practice. It constructs a Consent-Filtered Multilateralism Framework that is organized around three filters, namely production control, incorporation control, and adjudicatory exposure. Applying the case of India as a critical example, it shows that the opposition to WTO plurilateral incorporation and the re-calibration of investment treaties are doctrinally connected reactions that are conditioned by these filters.
The article concludes that the actions of India can be interpreted not as obstructionist but as a logical reaction to the changes in the legal framework of the global economic law. In a broader sense, it provides a generalisable model of examining such similar patterns of selective engagement outside India.
