Neoliberalism as legalism: international economic law and the rise of the judiciary

This chapter seeks to make a more modest contribution to debates about neoliberal legality. Instead of inquiring into the 'nature' of neoliberal legality, it focuses on the degree of legalisation of public affairs and argues that there is an intrinsic link between an unfolding trend of legalisation and judicialisation of economic governance and the rise of neoliberalism. The chapter also focuses on international trade law as exemplified by the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade system and later the World Trade Organization and more specifically on the evolution of its dispute settlement mechanism across the five post-war decades. It argues that the economic developments are the outcome of a systematic crisis of the capitalist state and part of a wider process of redistribution of power to the benefit of international capital that Nicos Poulantzas has described as the emergence of 'authoritarian statism'.