Corruption and the WTO Legal System

The World Trade Organization has no substantive rules directly addressing corruption in trade relations. There are, however, numerous legal provisions in the various WTO texts that offer indirect support to traders facing corrupt trade administrators. Whether these provisions are sufficient to address the bulk of trade-related corruption is questionable, given the narrow range of corrupt practices that are affected by these, mainly procedural, obligations. This article sets out a framework for further research into the question of how corruption affects trade liberalization, and puts forth a suggestion for how the WTO could take a step towards remedying its avoidance of the topic of corruption while not exceeding its functional scope of regulating trade relations among Members.