Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-l7hp2 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-30T17:48:07.921Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Politics of Dispute Settlement Design: Explaining Legalism in Regional Trade Pacts

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 July 2003

James McCall Smith
Get access

Abstract

Dispute settlement mechanisms in international trade vary dramatically from one agreement to another. Some mechanisms are highly legalistic, with standing tribunals that resemble national courts in their powers and procedures. Others are diplomatic, requiring only that the disputing countries make a good-faith effort to resolve their differences through consultations. In this article I seek to account for the tremendous variation in institutional design across a set of more than sixty post-1957 regional trade pacts. In contrast to accounts that emphasize the transaction costs of collective action or the functional requirements of deep integration, I find that the level of legalism in each agreement is strongly related to the level of economic asymmetry, in interaction with the proposed depth of liberalization, among member countries.

Type
Articles
Information
International Organization , Volume 54 , Issue 1 , Winter 2000 , pp. 137 - 180
Copyright
Copyright © The IO Foundation 2000

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Alesina, Alberto, and Rosenthal, Howard. 1995. Partisan Politics, Divided Government and the Economy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Alesina, Alberto, and Wacziarg, Romain. 1997. Openness, Country Size, and the Government. NBER Working Paper 6024. Cambridge, Mass.: National Bureau of Economic Research.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Alesina, Alberto, Spolaore, Enrico, and Wacziarg, Romain. 1997. Economic Integration and Political Disintegration. NBER Working Paper 6163. Cambridge, Mass.: National Bureau of Economic Research.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Alter, Karen J. 1998. Who Are the “Masters of the Treaty”: European Governments and the European Court of Justice. International Organization 52 (1): 121–47.Google Scholar
Azrieli, Avraham. 1993. Improving Arbitration Under the U.S.–Israel Free Trade Agreement: A Frame work for a Middle East Free Trade Zone. St. John's Law Review 67 (2): 187–263.Google Scholar
Berry, William D. 1999. Testing for Interaction in Models with Binary Dependent Variables. Society for Political Methodology Working Paper. San Luis Obispo, Calif.: California Polytechnic State University.Google Scholar
Bierwagen, Rainer M., and Hull, David W.. 1993. Decisions of Regional and Foreign Courts. American Journal of International Law 87: 117–37.Google Scholar
Burley, Anne Marie, and Mattli, Walter. 1993. Europe Before the Court: A Political Theory of Legal Integration. International Organization 47 (1): 41–76.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chayes, Abram, and Chayes, Antonia Handler. 1995. The New Sovereignty: Compliance with International Regulatory Agreements. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cowell, Frank A. 1995. Measuring Inequality. 2d ed. New York: Prentice Hall.Google Scholar
Dam, Kenneth W. 1970. The GATT: Law and International Economic Organization. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
de la Torre, Augusto, and Kelly, Margaret R.. 1992. Regional Trade Arrangements. International Monetary Fund Occasional Paper 93. Washington, D.C.: IMF.Google Scholar
Destler, I. M. 1986. American Trade Politics: System under Stress. Washington, D.C.: Institute for International Economics.Google Scholar
Destler, I. M., and Odell, John S.. 1987. Anti-protection: Changing Forces in United States Trade Politics. Washington, D.C.: Institute for International Economics.Google Scholar
Downs, George W., and Rocke, David M. 1995. Optimal Imperfection? Domestic Uncertainty and Institutions in International Relations. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Eliason, Scott R. 1993. Maximum Likelihood Estimation: Logic and Practice. Thousand Oaks, Calif.: Sage.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Foroutan, Faezeh. 1993 Regional Integration in Sub-Saharan Africa: Past Experience and Future Prospects. In New Dimensions in Regional Integration, edited by de Melo, Jaime and Panagariya, Arvind, 234–71. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sen, Amartya Kumar, and Foster, James E.. 1997. On Economic Inequality After a Quarter Century. In Sen, On Economic Inequality. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Frieden, Jeffry A. 1991. Invested Interests: The Politics of National Economic Policies in a World of Global Finance. International Organization 45 (4): 425–51.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Garrett, Geoffrey. 1995. The Politics of Legal Integration in the European Union. International Organization 49(1): 171–81.Google Scholar
Garrett, Geoffrey, and Weingast, Barry R.. 1993. Ideas, Interests, and Institutions: Constructing the European Community's Internal Market. In Ideas and Foreign Policy: Beliefs Institutions, and Policy Change, edited by Goldstein, Judith and Keohane, Robert O., 173–206. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Garrett, Geoffrey, Kelemen, R. Daniel, and Schulz, Heiner. 1998. The European Court of Justice, National Governments, and Legal Integration in the European Union. International Organization 52 (1): 149–76.Google Scholar
Goldstein, Judith. 1993. Ideas, Interests, and American Trade Policy, Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Goldstein, Judith. 1996. International Law and Domestic Institutions: Reconciling North American “Unfair” Trade Laws. International Organization 50 (4): 541–64.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Michael, Hart. 1994. Decision at Midnight: Inside the Canada–U.S. Free Trade Negotiations. Vancouver, B.C.: UBC Press.Google Scholar
Hart, Robert A., and Clark, David H.. 1999. Does Size Matter? Exploring the Small Sample Properties of Maximum Likelihood Estimation. Society for Political Methodology Working Paper. San Luis Obispo, Calif.: California Polytechnic State University.Google Scholar
Hudec, Robert E. 1971. GATT or GABB? The Future Design of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade. Yale Law Journal 80 (7): 1299–1386.Google Scholar
Hudec, Robert E. 1993. Enforcing International Trade Law: The Evolution of the Modern GATT Legal System. Salem, N.H.: Butterworth.Google Scholar
International Monetary Fund (IMF). 1994. International Trade Policies: The Uruguay Round and Beyond. Vol. 2, Background Papers. Washington, D.C.: IMF.Google Scholar
Jackson, John H. 1979. Governmental Disputes in International Trade Relations: A Proposal in the Con text of GATT. Journal of World Trade Law 13: 1–21.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jackson, John H. 1992. Status of Treaties in Domestic Legal Systems: A Policy Analysis. American Journal of International Law 86: 310–40.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kahler, Miles. 1995. International Institutions and the Political Economy of Integration. Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution.Google Scholar
Keohane, Robert O. 1984. After Hegemony: Cooperation and Discord in the World Political Economy. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Kiewiet, D. Roderick, and Rivers, Douglas. 1984. A Retrospective on Retrospective Voting. Political Behavior 6 (4): 369–93.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kovenock, Dan, and Thursby, Marie. 1994. GATT, Dispute Settlement, and Cooperation. In Analytical and Negotiating Issues in the Global Trading System, edited by Deardorft, Alan V. and Stern, Robert M., 361–98. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.Google Scholar
Krasner, Stephen D. 1991. Global Communications and National Power Life on the Pareto Frontier. World Politics 43 (3): 336–66.Google Scholar
Long, J. Scott. 1997. Regression Models for Categorical and Limited Dependent Variables. Thousand Oaks, Calif.: Sage.Google Scholar
Magee, Stephen P., Brock, William A., and Young, Leslie. 1989. Black Hole Tariffs and Endogenous Policy Theory Political Economy in General Equilibrium. London: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Maggi, Giovanni. 1996. The Role of Multilateral Institutions in International Trade Cooperation. American Economic Review 89 (1): 190–214.Google Scholar
Malanczuk, Peter. 1997. Akehurst's Modern Introduction to International Law. 7th ed. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Mattli, Walter, and Slaughter, Anne-Marie. 1995. Law and Politics in the European Union: A Reply to Garrett. International Organization 49 (1): 183–90.Google Scholar
Mattli, Walter, and Slaughter, Anne-Marie. 1996. Constructing the European Community Legal System from the Ground Up: The Role of Individual Litigants and National Courts. Jean Monnet Chair Working Paper 6/96. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard Law School.Google Scholar
Mattli, Walter, and Slaughter, Anne-Marie. 1998. Revisiting the European Court of Justice. International Organization 52(1): 177–209.Google Scholar
Merrills, J. G. 1991. International Dispute Settlement. 2d ed. Cambridge: Grotius.Google Scholar
Paul, Milgrom, and Roberts, John. 1992. Economics Organization, and Management. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall.Google Scholar
Moravcsik, Andrew. 1993. Preferences and Power in the European Community: A Liberal Intergovernmentalist Approach. Journal of Common Market Studies 31 (4): 473–524.Google Scholar
O'Neal Taylor, Cherie. 1996. Dispute Resolution as a Catalyst for Economic Integration and an Agent for Deepening Integration: NAFTA and MERCOSUR. Northwestern Journal of International Law and Business 17 (2/3): 850–99.Google Scholar
Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). Various years. National Accounts Statistics. Paris: OECD.Google Scholar
Pastor, Robert A. 1980. Congress and the Politics of U.S. Foreign Economic Policy. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Pastori, Alejandro. 1994. The Institutions of MERCOSUR: From the Treaty of Asuncion to the Protocol of Ouro Preto. Inter-American Legal Materials 6 (3/4): 1–31.Google Scholar
Pescatore, Pierre. 1992. Court of Justice of the European Communities. In Encyclopedia of Public International Law, vol. 1., edited by Bernhardt, Rudolf, 852–67. New York: North-Holland.Google Scholar
Reisman, Michael, and Wiedman, Mark. 1995. Contextual Imperatives of Dispute Resolution Mechanisms: Some Hypotheses and their Applications in the Uruguay Round and NAFTA. Journal of World Trade 29 (3): 5–38.Google Scholar
Ruggie, John Gerard, ed. 1993. Multilateralism Matters: The Theory and Praxis of an Institutional Form. New York: Columbia University Press.Google Scholar
Schattschneider, E. E. 1935. Politics, Pressures, and the Tariff: A Study of Free Private Enterprise in Pressure Politics, as Shown in the 1929–30 Revision of the Tariff. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice Hall.Google Scholar
Shapiro, Martin M. 1981. Courts: A Comparative and Political Analysis. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Slaughter, Anne-Marie, Tulumello, Andrew S., and Wood, Stepan. 1998. International Law and International Relations Theory: A New Generation of Interdisciplinary Scholarship. American Journal of International Law 92 (3): 367–97.Google Scholar
Smith, James McCall. 1995. The Limits of Legalization: Dispute Settlement in NAFTA. Stanford Center on Conflict and Negotiation Working Paper 49. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford Law School.Google Scholar
Smith, James McCall. 1998. Policing International Trade: The Politics of Dispute Settlement Design. Ph.D. diss., Stanford University, Stanford, Calif.Google Scholar
Stone Sweet, Alec 1999. Judicialization and the Construction of Governance. Comparative Political Studies 32 (2): 147–84.Google Scholar
Stone Sweet, Alec, and Brunell, Thomas L.. 1998. Constructing a Supranational Constitution: Dispute Resolution and Governance in the European Community. American Political Science Review 92: 63–81.Google Scholar
Tsoukalis, Loukas 1993. The New European Economy: The Politics and Economics of Integration. 2d ed. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
United Nations (UN). Various years. Statistical Yearbook. New York: UN.Google Scholar
von Glahn, Gerhard. 1996. Law Among Nations: An Introduction to Public International Law. 7th ed. Boston: Allyn and Bacon.Google Scholar
Weiler, Joseph H. H. 1991. The Transformation of Europe. Yale Law Journal 100 (8): 2403–83.Google Scholar
Weingast, Barry R. 1995. A Rational Choice Perspective on the Role of Ideas: Shared Belief Systems and State Sovereignty in International Cooperation. Politics and Society 23 (4): 449–64.Google Scholar
Williamson, Oliver E. 1985. The Economic Institutions of Capitalism: Firms, Markets, Relational Contracting. New York: Free Press.Google Scholar
Wolf, Martin. 1987. Why Trade Liberalization Is a Good Idea. In The Uruguay Round: A Handbook on the Multilateral Trade Negotiations, edited by Finger, J. Michael and Olechowski, Andrzej, 14–21. Washington, D.C.: World Bank.Google Scholar
World Bank. Various years. World Development Indicators. CD-ROM. Washington, D.C.: World Bank.Google Scholar
World Trade Organization (WTO). 1995. Regionalism and the World Trading System. Geneva: WTO.Google Scholar
Yarbrough, Beth V., and Yarbrough, Robert M.. 1986. Reciprocity, Bilateralism, and Economic “Hostages”: Self-enforcing Agreements in International Trade. International Studies Quarterly 30 (1): 7–21.Google Scholar
Yarbrough, Beth V., and Yarbrough, Robert M. 1990. International Institutions and the New Economics of Organization. International Organization 44 (2): 235–59.Google Scholar
Yarbrough, Beth V., and Yarbrough, Robert M. 1992. Cooperation and Governance in International Trade: The Strategic Organizational Approach. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Yarbrough, Beth V., and Yarbrough, Robert M. 1994. Regionalism and Layered Governance: The Choice of Trade Institutions. Journal of International Affairs 48 (1): 95–117.Google Scholar
Yarbrough, Beth V., and Yarbrough, Robert M. 1997. Dispute Settlement in International Trade: Regionalism and Procedural Coordination. In The Political Economy of Regionalism, edited by Mansfield, Edward D. and Milner, Helen V., 134–63. New York: Columbia University Press.Google Scholar
Young, H. Peyton, ed. 1985. Fair Allocation. Providence, R.I.: American Mathematical Society.CrossRefGoogle Scholar