<p>The trade principles of Western liberal democracies are at the core<br>of international trade law regimes and standards. Are non-Western<br>societies uniformly adopting international standards, or are they<br>adapting them to local norms and cultural values?</p><br><br><p>This volume presents a new conceptual approach – the paradigm<br>of selective adaptation – to explore and explain the reception of<br>international trade law in the Pacific Rim. It brings together scholars<br>from Australia, Canada, China, and Japan who reveal how the World Trade<br>Organization’s standards are being interpreted – and in<br>some cases disputed – in selected countries. Building on a<br>conceptual discussion of the normative and institutional contexts for<br>international trade law, the authors draw on examples from China,<br>Japan, Thailand, and North America to show that formal acceptance of<br>international trade standards through accession to the World Trade<br>Organization and the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade does not<br>necessarily lead to uniform enforcement and acceptance at the local<br>level. </p><br><br><p><em>Globalization and Local Adaptation in International Trade<br>Law</em> provides compelling evidence that non-uniform compliance will<br>be a legitimate outcome of the globalization of international trade<br>rules. </p>