The strategic calculus of WTO dispute initiation: evidence from the United States

J. Tyson Chatagnier, Arlo Poletti and Aydin B. Yildirim

Chapter 10 in Research Handbook on Trade Wars, 2022, pp 191-208 from Edward Elgar Publishing

Abstract: What determines states' decision to use international litigation to challenge potential violations of World Trade Organization (WTO) rules? In the face of growing number of foreign trade barriers and limited resources, states must take into account a number of factors before resorting to inter-state litigation at the WTO. Such considerations involve a complex litigation strategy from officials that act as gate keepers to initiate disputes at the WTO's dispute settlement mechanism. Using expanded data that include the universe of potential disputes for the United States (U.S.) between 1995 and 2012, we examine the degree to which strategic concerns influence both the decision of the U.S. to launch a dispute and the decision of the partner state to acquiesce or stand firm. We find evidence that the US takes into account the likelihood of both favorable judgments from the WTO and compliance by the defendant in deciding whether to challenge a trade barrier formally.

Keywords: Asian Studies; Economics and Finance; Geography; Politics and Public Policy (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.elgaronline.com/view/edcoll/9781839105692/9781839105692.00019.xml (application/pdf)
Our link check indicates that this URL is bad, the error code is: 503 Service Temporarily Unavailable

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:elg:eechap:19694_10

Ordering information: This item can be ordered from
http://www.e-elgar.com

Access Statistics for this chapter

More chapters in Chapters from Edward Elgar Publishing
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Darrel McCalla ().