This study theoretically substantiates the assumption that deliberative global governance enables legitimate governance beyond the state and empirically validates it using the example of the WTO. To this end, a model is developed that transfers considerations from deliberative democratic theory regarding the function of law and civil society to international politics. The reconstruction of deliberative processes in the WTO debate on access to essential medicines shows that when civil society actors build public justification pressure and legally codified justification obligations apply, argument-based interaction can be strengthened and the asymmetric distribution of negotiating power can be relativized.