This is yet another form of hegemonic discourse, in this case linked to the free-trade ideology. This ideology is capable of being explained through Gramsci’s account of “economism”. For Gramsci “economism” is “the theoretical separation of the economic dimension from a social and political ensemble: more specifically, the reduction of this ensemble to its economic causes”. [16] In the Prison Notebooks, Gramsci associates such separation directly and explicitly with the ideology of free trade. [17] Free-trade ideology’s attempt to separate the “economic” from the “social” and “political” informs much of the posture adopted by WTO judges and investment arbitrators.