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Mr Miller clarified one common misconception, pointing out that neither the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) nor the WTO attempted to dictate how members should run their domestic economies.
"They simply set out the rules to be observed when one member trades with another," he said.
Thus, he added, there are rules on tariff and non-tariff barriers, on export subsidies, on anti-competitive behaviour by firms engaged in international trade and so on.
"However, there are no rules requiring members to run social welfare programmes, or insisting the governments become directly involved in the provision of housing, or health services, or that the state establish national pension arrangements," he said.
"Indeed, there is nothing in either document about fiscal or budgetary policy. The emphasis is on ensuring transparent rules for external transactions, not prescribing domestic policies.
"Historically the GATT and more recently the WTO take it for granted that members will have different views on how to run their domestic economies. They take it for granted that intelligent people in different parts of the world and even within different countries will differ on the best approach to solving their domestic problems which they from time to time encounter.
"They take it for granted that members should be free to experiment, that there is no 'right' way to solve all problems everywhere, that encouraging diversity is better than imposing arbitrary standards."
Mr Miller said a key issue at the heart of future debate on trade and international competition would be the proper limits to state intervention in the
economy.
He went on to say that the triumph of market over managed economics internationally had highlighted the differences between market economies, citing government spending as a percentage of GDP as a crude but convenient measure of the degree of government intervention.