Workshop on International Law, Natural Resources and Sustainable
Development
Historically Situating Agriculture at the Centre of Trade Law
Michael Fakhri
School of Law, University of Oregon
The common history of trade law begins with the GATT. Since GATT primarily regulated the
trade in manufactured products, such an account focuses on industrial interests. And yet,
trade in agriculture affected the lives of millions of people.
As such, in this paper, I provide a history of postwar trade law that treats agriculture as a
principal concern. We therefore find that the institutional history of trade law included
more than the GATT. This article begins with a brief history of the rise and fall of
international commodity agreements (ICAs) as an idea. Then it outlines tensions between
developed and developed countries as manifested both within and between GATT and
UNCTAD. By outlining the relationship between UNCTAD, ICAs and GATT, I highlight how
developing countries navigated amongst the following: using UNCTAD to generate trade
policies conducive to development, continuing to enhance and improve ICAs, and
participating in GATT in an effort to ensure access to developed countries’ markets.
My general aim is to reinvigorate our understanding of ICAs. Their institutional structure
reflected and affected the multitude of international economic, political, and social
preoccupations of the time and were not simply the technical calibration of commodity
prices. In light of ICAs diverse functions and institutional experiments, I leave it open as to
whether it is worth reviving ICAs in form.