Neo-Liberalism, State-Capitalism and Ordo-Liberalism: ‘Institutional Economics’ and ‘Constitutional Choices’ in Multilevel Trade Regulation

Abstract Reforms of international trade and investment law and institutions are hampered by conflicting economic paradigms. For instance, utilitarian Anglo-Saxon neo-liberalism (e.g. promoting self-regulatory market forces privileging the homo economicus), constitutional European ordo-liberalism (e.g. protecting multilevel, constitutional rights and judicial remedies of European Union citizens), and authoritarian state-capitalism (e.g. protecting totalitarian power monopolies of the communist party in China) pursue different legal and institutional designs of trade and investment agreements. Globalization and its transformation of national into transnational public goods (PG s) require extending constitutional and institutional economics to multilevel governance of transnational PG s in order to enhance the wealth of nations. Maintaining the worldwide legal and dispute settlement system of the World Trade Organization (WTO) – and interpreting its regional and national exception clauses broadly in order to reconcile diverse, national and regional institutions of economic integration and of ‘embedded liberalism’ – remains in the interest of all WTO member states.