This book is the culmination of what I have tried to convey, explicitly and implicitly, about the world trading systemsince I began my graduate study in 1996. In a nutshell, this book explores and utilizes a social perspective of the WTO and its operation. Here, WTO members are defined as social, rather than rational, actors. The seed of this perspective was sown inmy pre-academic career as a trade official.What I witnessed in Geneva could not be explained exclusively by calculation, strategies, and interests. While these factors did loom large, an undeniably real, if not always overt, social dynamic was also present. Even when driven by strategic considerations, WTO members had to know WTO norms to square their positions within the normative framework. Trade officials were obliged to learn all the relevant WTO agreements, decisions, case law, and other practices, even before they established the strategies. Not everymovemade byWTO members appeared to be out of calculation: in fact, most members seemed to be doing what they were doing because they took the actions for granted in themost unspectacular fashion. They were speaking the WTO language (norms).