Implementing the Tokyo Round: Legal Aspects of Changing International Economic Rules

International economic and political interdependence has increased dramatically since the close of World War II. We now watch foreign wars on our living room television sets, move billions of dollars worth of funds across national borders daily, and feel the effects of political violence in the Mideast throughout our domestic farmlands. A corollary to economic and political interdependence, however, is the less visible but equally pervasive problem of legal interdependence. Any attempt, in the contemporary world, to create new international rules or institutions necessarily depends on the national legal and constitutional systems of a number of countries.

This Article analyzes the Tokyo Round negotiations of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade as a case study of the legal processes and constraints that influence international economic negotiations.