The critical impulse with which the debate starts becomes dissipated and largely lost, and international trade law as a discipline fails adequately to engage with, and respond to the substance of, anti-globalisation critiques of the trading system. I suggest the need for an alternative form of scho- larly practice, which both negates the exclusionary discursive e¡ects of the ‘trade and’ debate and, more positively, facilitates the engagement of international law- yers in the project of re-imagining liberal trade. At the same time, there are some aspects of my argument which may speak more broadly. The discursive structure of the ‘trade and’ debate is not unique, but re£ects in part some features of the broader public critique of the international trading order. It may be, therefore, that this call to re-think international trade ^ merely the latest in a series of such calls in recent years from a number of commentators108 ^ may have equal resonance outside the realm of international trade lawyers.