<p>Is there still a chance for Europe’s initiative on a WTO Multilateral Framework Agreement on competition policy after the failure of the 2003 Ministerial Conference of Cancún? Do developing countries that reject the initiative act against their own interests? Do we really need such an agreement in the light of alternative approaches to international competition law? This article tries to answer these questions and supports principles of a possible WTO competition law considerably different from those proposed by the European Community. These principles reject a concept of an international competition law as a market-access guaranteeing instrument of trade policy and would implement the protection of international competition in trans-border markets as the objective of WTO competition law. This kind of law reacts to today’s situation in which trade liberalisation and international protection of intellectual property rights enable undertakings to abuse their freedoms and their property rights in larger markets emerging as a consequence of WTO law after the Uruguay Round. In this sense the proposals of this article contribute to the solution of problems of globalisation.</p>
World Competition