Dispute settlement in international trade: an economic analysis of the WTO DSU.

This PhD studies the World Trade Organization (WTO)’s dispute settlement (DSU) from a political-economic perspective. It pays particular attention to the strategic decision-making at the different steps of the WTO dispute settlement, and whether the WTO’s dispute settlement provides equal access and outcomes to all of the WTO member states. The WTO DSU provides a system for the settlement of trade conflicts. When a country perceives a violation of the WTO agreements by another WTO member, it can file a complaint at the WTO, which will then investigate the trade policy at hand. Due to the strengthening of international trade discipline by the coming into action of the WTO (1994), the number of disputes filed at the WTO has strongly risen. The high number of complaints shows that the WTO has so far not been able to deter individual member states from installing WTO inconsistent foreign trade barriers (FTBs). The main question addressed in this dissertation is whether the WTO DSU has been able to rule out the power differences between its member states. Indeed, the WTO DSU has been proclaimed as a means to level the playfield between the WTO member states, as it provides a more rule-based environment which presumably should have put all WTO members on equal footing in enforcing their market access abroad. It specifically studies the selection of FTBs for WTO litigation, and the actions and strategies of developing countries in navigating WTO dispute settlement.status: publishe