Sivan Shlomo Agon, "Going Public: Reasoning and Justification at the World Trade Court", in Public Reason and Courts (Silje A. Langvatn, Mattias Kumm, and Wojciech Sadurski eds., Cambridge University Press, 2020).

40 Pages Posted: 30 Jan 2026 Bar Ilan University Faculty of Law Date Written: May 22, 2020 The chapter discusses the World Trade Organization dispute settlement system (WTO DSS) as an example of a prominent international adjudicative body where the idea of public reason is noticeable. The chapter’s starts from the premise that the e xercise of authority by international courts requires legitimacy; yet, as international courts come to play an ever more significant role in global governance, their traditional source of legitimacy embedded in state consent seems no longer sufficient, and additional grounds are needed to sustain the claim for legitimacy of these empowered international institutions. In this state of play, it is suggested, public reason offers one supplementary source for international courts to enhance their legitimacy by ensuring that their own decisions, as well as the states’ decisions they are called upon to review, are the result of reasons and forms of reasoning that can be reasonably understood and accepted to all the subjects affected . Such ideas of public reason and public justification, the chapter then turns to show, are not merely theoretical conceptions of legitimacy and legitimation; rather, they are discernible in the actual practice of at least one key international adjudicative body —the WTO DSS. Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation Public International Law: Courts & Adjudication eJournal Subscribe to this fee journal for more curated articles on this topic International Economic Law eJournal Subscribe to this fee journal for more curated articles on this topic Law & Society: International & Comparative Law eJournal Subscribe to this free journal for more curated articles on this topic