How Do Prior Rulings Affect Future Disputes?

2019 ◽  
Vol 63 (4) ◽  
pp. 1122-1132 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jeffrey Kucik
Keyword(s):  
World Trade Organization ◽  
World Trade ◽  
Case Law ◽  
Legal Decisions ◽  
International Dispute ◽  
Early Settlement ◽  
The World ◽  
The Law ◽  
Made In

Abstract International dispute systems are often designed so that dispute body rulings do not set precedent. Yet governments have incentives to learn from prior decisions. Past rulings convey important information about how the law is applied. This is especially true in the World Trade Organization (WTO), where disputes frequently occur between the same members and over the same issues. I argue that case law increases the likelihood of early settlement. This helps explain why fifty percent of WTO cases end prior to a formal ruling. I use new data on the direction of ruling on each legal claim made in the first 450 WTO disputes. The results show that litigants are significantly more likely to settle early given the presence of previous legal decisions.

Exploring the Meaning of Trade-Restrictiveness in the WTO

2015 ◽  
Vol 14 (3) ◽  
pp. 451-477 ◽  
Author(s):  
TANIA VOON
Keyword(s):  
World Trade Organization ◽  
World Trade ◽  
Market Access ◽  
Careful Analysis ◽  
Case Law ◽  
Alternative Measure ◽  
Precise Meaning ◽  
The World ◽  
General Exceptions ◽  
Domestic Products

AbstractTrade-restrictiveness is a familiar concept across various provisions and agreements of the World Trade Organization (WTO), but its precise meaning remains vague. In many WTO disputes, the existence or degree of trade-restrictiveness of a challenged measure is simply assumed or addressed in a few brief sentences. Yet whether a measure is more trade-restrictive than necessary, or more trade-restrictive than a proposed alternative measure, is crucial to the legality of a range of measures currently in place around the world, some under challenge in the WTO. A careful analysis of the existing case law and treaty text – focusing on Article 2.2 of the Agreement on Technical Barriers to Trade and the general exceptions in the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade 1994 and the General Agreement on Trade in Services – demonstrates that while the existence of discrimination is likely to restrict trade, discrimination is not necessary to establish trade-restrictiveness, which also necessarily arises from direct barriers to market access such as import bans. In the absence of an explicit barrier to imports, a WTO panel is likely to focus on the extent to which a challenged measure negatively affects the competitive opportunities of imported products vis-à-vis domestic products.

Learning to Dispute: Repeat Participation, Expertise, and Reputation at the World Trade Organization

2010 ◽  
Vol 35 (03) ◽  
pp. 625-662 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joseph A. Conti
Keyword(s):  
World Trade Organization ◽  
Mixed Method ◽  
World Trade ◽  
Case Law ◽  
Dynamic Learning ◽  
The World ◽  
Panel Review ◽  
Repeat Participation ◽  
Method Analysis ◽  
Selection Of

This mixed‐method analysis examines the effects of repeat participation on disputing at the World Trade Organization (WTO). Differences between disputants in terms of their experience with WTO disputing processes affect the likelihood of a dispute transitioning to a panel review in distinct ways, depending upon the configuration of the parties. More experienced complainants tend to achieve settlements, while more experienced respondents tend to refuse conciliation. Strategies of experienced respondents are derived from the expertise generated from repeated direct participation and the normalcy of disputing for repeat players as well as the benefits accruing from a reputation for being unlikely to settle. Repeat players also seek to avoid disputes expected to produce unfavorable jurisprudence but do not actively try to create new case law through the selection of disputes. This research demonstrates a dynamic learning process in how parties use international legal forums and thus extends sociolegal scholarship beyond the nation‐state.

The Politics of Judicial Economy at the World Trade Organization

2010 ◽  
Vol 64 (2) ◽  
pp. 257-279 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marc L. Busch ◽  
Krzysztof J. Pelc
Keyword(s):  
World Trade Organization ◽  
World Trade ◽  
International Institutions ◽  
Third Party ◽  
Legal Decisions ◽  
The World ◽  
The Future ◽  
Future Consequences ◽  
Judicial Economy

AbstractInternational institutions often moderate the legal decisions they render. World Trade Organization (WTO) panels do this by exercising judicial economy. This practice, which is evident in 41 percent of all rulings, involves the decision not to rule on some of the litigants' arguments. The constraint is that it can be appealed. We argue that panels exercise judicial economy when the wider membership is ambivalent about the future consequences of a broader ruling. This is proxied by the “mixed” (that is, nonpartisan) third-party submissions, which are informative because they are costly, jeopardizing a more decisive legal victory that would benefit these governments too. We empirically test this hypothesis, and find that mixed third-party submissions increase the odds of judicial economy by upwards of 68 percent. This suggests that panels invoke judicial economy to politically appease the wider WTO membership, and not just to gain the litigants' compliance in the case at hand.

scholarly journals The Unanswered: Indirect Protection through the GATT

2019 ◽  
pp. 83-130
Author(s):  
Charlotte E. Blattner
Keyword(s):  
World Trade Organization ◽  
International Law ◽  
World Trade ◽  
Trade Law ◽  
The World ◽  
Academic Discussion ◽  
The Law ◽  
Restrictive Measures ◽  
Indirect Protection

This chapter explores the breadth and scope of options available to states that want to indirectly protect animals across the border, in particular under the law of the World Trade Organization (WTO). The flurry of academic discussion at the intersection of animal and trade law was sparked by the Appellate Body’s Seals report in 2014, but it failed to cut deep enough to link to the doctrine of jurisdiction under general international law, and efforts to enter negotiations to more thoroughly protect animals in trade never materialized. The author advances the discussion and fills a gap in scholarship by examining whether and how states can use trade law to indirectly protect animals abroad through import prohibitions, taxes and tariffs, as well as labels. An analysis of the legality of trade-restrictive measures that indirectly protect animals under the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) precedes a discussion of justifications for violating the agreement.

scholarly journals Japanese Response to Indonesian Law Banning the Export of Raw Minerals

2018 ◽  
Vol 9 (18) ◽  
pp. 50
Author(s):  
Tai Fang Yi
Keyword(s):  
World Trade Organization ◽  
Coal Mining ◽  
World Trade ◽  
Raw Material ◽  
Export Activity ◽  
The World ◽  
The Law ◽  
The Government ◽  
Minerals Processing ◽  
Bahasa Indonesia

<p>The government of Indonesia enacted a policy banning the export of raw minerals in 2009, materialized in Law No. 04 of 2009 on Mineral and Coal Mining. The law mandated the raw minerals processing inside the country before they can be exported to other countries by the year 2014. This policy has drawn response from the government of Japan as one of the importing countries. Japan had threatened to report to the World Trade Organization regarding the issue because they complained that the policy violates the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade. This study discusses how the policy is in the effort of Indonesia to develop its nation without any intention to harm any other countries. The justification of the enactment of the policy is mandated under the 1945 Constitution and the policy in essence does not deny the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade. The enactment of the policy has affected the raw minerals export activity in Indonesia when export activity reached its peak in 2013 and also the last year raw material export was allowed. The policy might also have impacts on Japanese mining industries which relies on the import of raw minerals from Indonesia and those having investments in Indonesian mining industries. Japan at the end cancelled its intention to report Indonesia to the World Trade Organization and agreed to solve the dispute through bilateral solutions.</p><p>BAHASA INDONESIA ABSTRAK: Pemerintah Indonesia memberlakukan kebijakan yang melarang ekspor mineral mentah pada tahun 2009 yang terwujud dalam Undang-Undang No. 04 Tahun 2009 tentang Pertambangan Mineral dan Batubara. Undang-Undang tersebut mengamanatkan pemrosesan mineral mentah di dalam negeri sebelum dapat diekspor ke negara lain mulai dari tahun 2014. Kebijakan ini telah menarik tanggapan dari pemerintah Jepang sebagai salah satu negara pengimpor. Jepang telah mengancam untuk melapor kepada Organisasi Perdagangan Dunia mengenai masalah ini karena mereka mengeluhkan bahwa kebijakan tersebut melanggar Persetujuan Umum tentang Tarif dan Perdagangan. Studi ini membahas bagaimana kebijakan tersebut adalah upaya Indonesia untuk mengembangkan negaranya tanpa ada niat untuk menyakiti negara lain. Pembenaran atas berlakunya kebijakan tersebut diamanatkan di bawah UUD 1945 dan pada intinya, kebijakan tersebut tidak menyalahi Persetujuan Umum tentang Tarif dan Pertambangan. Pemberlakuan kebijakan tersebut telah mempengaruhi aktivitas ekspor mineral mentah di Indonesia di mana kegiatan ekspor mineral mentah paling tinggi pada tahun 2013 yang merupakan tahun terakhir di mana mineral mentah diizinkan untuk diekspor. Kebijakan tersebut memiliki dampak yang mungkin terjadi bagi industri pertambangan Jepang yang mengandalkan impor mineral mentah dari Indonesia dan yang memiliki investasi di industri pertambangan Indonesia. Jepang pada akhirnya membatalkan niatnya untuk melaporkan Indonesia ke Organisasi Perdagangan Dunia dan sepakat untuk menyelesaikan perselisihan tersebut melalui solusi bilateral.</p>

scholarly journals No Outsourcing of Law? WTO Law as Practiced by WTO Courts

2008 ◽  
Vol 102 (3) ◽  
pp. 421-474 ◽  
Author(s):  
Petros C. Mavroidis
Keyword(s):  
World Trade Organization ◽  
World Trade ◽  
Critical Assessment ◽  
Appellate Body ◽  
The World ◽  
The Law

This article provides a critical assessment of the corpus of law that the adjudicating bodies of the World Trade Organization (WTO)—the Appellate Body (AB) and panels—have used since the organization was established on January 1, 1995. After presenting a taxonomy of WTO law, I move to discern, and to provide a critical assessment of, the philosophy of the WTO adjudicating bodies, when called to interpret it. In discussing the law that WTO adjudicating bodies have used, I distinguish between sources of WTO law and interpretative elements. This distinction will be explicated in part I below. Part II provides a taxonomy of the sources of WTO law, and part III a taxonomy of the interpretative elements used to illuminate those sources. Part IV concludes.

The Law and Policy of the World Trade Organization

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter Van den Bossche ◽  
Werner Zdouc
Keyword(s):  
World Trade Organization ◽  
World Trade ◽  
Law And Policy ◽  
The World ◽  
The Law
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