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Why Does the World Trade Organization Appear Neoliberal? The Puzzle of the High Incidence of Guilty Verdicts in WTO Adjudication

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 April 2003

Keisuke Iida
Affiliation:
International Relations, Aoyama Gakuin University, Tokyo
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Abstract

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The dispute settlement mechanism of the World Trade Organization tends to give verdicts for the plaintiff much more often than verdicts for the defendant. Simple logic suggests that this is a puzzle: it is not immediately obvious why defendants do not settle out of court if they are likely to be found guilty. I argue that there are three alternative explanations for this puzzle: imperfect enforcement, asymmetric information, and domestic constraints. By examining three major WTO cases, I find the domestic constraints explanation the most persuasive.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
© 2003 Cambridge University Press