The Place of the WTO and its Law in the International Legal Order

I am particularly honoured by your invitation to this Second Biennial Conference of the European Society of International Law. Indeed, I am both honoured and pleased, not only because I am in Paris, but above all because I support the ESIL project, one of the objectives of which is to develop a deeper understanding of trade law and to promote closer cooperation among all those working in the field of inter- national law. Admittedly, I have only distant memories of the Hague Academy of Interna- tional Law where I once worked on estoppel, but the general theme of this conference - International Law: Do We Need It? - convinced me that there was room, this evening, for a non-specialist. It is in that capacity that I will be speaking to you, in the hope that I can contribute the views of a practitioner on the role and place of WTO law within the international legal order. In doing so, I am seeking to estab- lish a constructive dialogue between doctrine and practice with the aim of improving normative and institutional coherence within the international legal