states are encouraged to follow, a departure from the relative freedom of
legislation the majority of countries experienced prior to the globalisation
process. The World Trade Organisation’s (WTO) Appellate Body – the former
mechanism within the institution with the role of settling trade disputes, had
been perceived by several states as adversarial to states with WTO membership
retaining sovereignty regarding trade matters (Meltzer, 2005). One particular
perceived breach of national sovereignty lay in the WTO’s negative consensus
regulation; Appellate Body rulings against state disputes required the states to
come into compliance, primarily through legislative changes (Meltzer, 2005). The
United States felt that this, along with other Appellate body rulings, such as the
body’s interpretation of an agreement that led to newfound obligations on the
part of states, which had not been formally agreed upon by the states
themselves (United States Trade Representative, 2019, p. 144) meant that the
WTO was infringing upon the sovereignty of states to dictate their own laws, and
the rules they had agreed to follow.
However, the implication of a blanket weakening of the nation-state
implies that all states experience the formation and membership of international
organisations in the same way. A common complaint from those who view
globalisation as westernisation – that is, a reproduction and strengthening of
existing western hegemony – is that countries in the global North often exert a
disproportionate amount of power within the voting and agreement systems of
many institutions. This, therefore, frames globalisation as a strengthening of the
power of nation-states; primarily Western ones, rather than the proposed
weakening of their power. Economic and social globalisation, therefore, are not
something states passively experience (Sweeney, 2016); rather, phenomena that
western states enforce on the rest of the world. The aforementioned WTO is a
prime example of this; states such as the US have the resources and prestige to
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