We cannot simultaneously pursue democracy, national determination and economic globalisation. They are incompatible. One of them has to go. Under the old General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), which ended in 1995, any nation was free to veto any deal. Nowadays democracies routinely suffer reversals in the WTO’s appellate court. For example, the European Union’s objections to importing genetically modified foods and hormone-infused beef were overruled by the WTO even though it conceded the science was unsettled.
