Foreign policy formulation has often been overlooked by legal analysts. Nevertheless, the increasing development of International Trade Law has put States in a position in which diplomacy mingles with defending the interest of domestic private parties who benefit from these rules. Accordingly, foreign trade policy should be the outcome of a domestic dialogue between the government and private interested parties: in such a dialogue, legal norms play the pivotal role of allowing better control over foreign policy formulation. The article explores this argument from the perspective of both the access to World Trade Organization's Dispute Settlement Body and the effects its decisions could engender to private parties.
Foreign policy; International Trade Law; World Trade Organization; Legalization