This article examines how the concept of ‘territory’ functions in World Trade Organization (WTO) law and how the law’s posture toward extraterritoriality is shifting as states adopt trade measures with global policy ambitions, particularly in climate and environmental regulation. It shows how domestic rules are designed to shape conduct abroad while maintaining a territorial façade. Mapping every use of ‘territory’ and ‘jurisdiction’ across WTO agreements, the article finds the texts territorial by default, deploying ‘jurisdiction’ only where territorial containment fails. Territory thus operates both as an existential status, the predicate of membership, and as a functional tool that organizes trade rules. Normatively, the article distinguishes territoriality (authority tied to space), functionality (vertical delegation to issue-specific regimes), and extraterritoriality (horizontal reach into other states’ domains). Many contemporary unilateral measures blend the three, with functionality often serving as the legal design through which extraterritoriality is delivered. The article concludes by proposing a ‘territorial-functional synthesis’. Measures should remain territorially anchored, answer a genuine cross-border need, and be filtered for extraterritoriality through WTO law’s existing discipline of non-discrimination.
Journal of World Trade