Chapter 12 Trade Dispute Diversion: The Economics of Conflicting Dispute Settlement Procedures between Regional Trade Agreements and the WTO

James Cassing

A chapter in Trade Disputes and the Dispute Settlement Understanding of the WTO: An Interdisciplinary Assessment, 2009, pp 303-330 from Emerald Group Publishing Limited

Abstract: A somewhat underappreciated aspect of the burgeoning rush to regional trade agreements (RTAs) is a discrepancy between the dispute settlement procedure (DSP) embodied in the original World Trade Organization (WTO) Dispute Settlement Understanding (DSU) and that found in the language of many RTAs. This chapter explores the issue in the context of a dynamic repeated game of trade agreements. As is well known, the institutional alternatives available in negotiating multilateral freer trade agreements – regional agreements, side agreements, trade dispute settlement punishments, and so on – can proscribe the limits and shape the nature of self-enforcing trade agreements. Here, we suggest the extent to which deviations from the WTO DSP embodied in RTAs – for example, “private interest access,” “third party procedures,” and “choice of forum” – can not only work against the interests of “weaker parties” but furthermore undermine multilateral agreements closer to free trade.

Keywords: Regional trade agreement; dispute settlement procedure; dispute settlement understanding; World Trade Organization; dynamic repeated game; self-enforcing agreement; choice of forum (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2009
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eme:fegzzz:s1574-8715(2009)0000006015

DOI: 10.1108/S1574-8715(2009)0000006015

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