The WTO system and democratic rights are unexpected bedfellows. The GATT⁄WTO requires governments to adopt policies that provide foreign products (read producers) with due process, political participation, and information rights related to trade policymaking. Because these nations also provide these rights to their citizens, a growing number of people are learning how to inﬂuence trade-related policies. As trade today encompasses many areas of governance, these same citizens may gradually transfer the skills learned from inﬂuencing trade policies to other public issues. Thus, the WTO not only empowers foreign market actors, but also citizens in repressive states. We use both qualitative and quantitative analysis to examine whether membership in the WTO over time leads to improvements in these democratic rights. Our qualitative analysis shows that these issues are discussed during accessions and trade policy reviews. Quantitative analysis examines how members of the GATT⁄WTO perform on these democratic rights over time. We use a cross-national time series design of all countries, accounting for selection issues of why countries become members of the GATT⁄WTO regime. We ﬁnd that longer GATT⁄WTO membership leads to stronger performance on our metrics for political participation, free and fair elections, and access to information.
Replication Dataset & Do File File (Zip)
- The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the Strategic Shift to Forced Disappearance
- Do Non–Human Rights Regimes Undermine the Achievement of Economic and Social Rights?
- The WTO helps member states keep the peace only when it increases trade
- Does the WTO Help Member States Clean Up?
- Does the WTO Help Member States Improve Governance?
- Is More Trade Always Better? The WTO & Human Rights in Conflict Zones
- De Facto Judicial Independence and Physical Integrity Rights
- The Paradox of the WTO: Development, Good Governance and Human Rights