What is litigation in the WTO worth?

Bechtel, Michael and Sattler, Thomas (2015) What is litigation in the WTO worth? International Organization, 69 (2). 375 - 403. ISSN 0020-8183

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Abstract

Conventional wisdom holds that the creation of international, court-like institutions helps countries to peacefully settle trade conflicts, thereby enhancing overall welfare. Many have argued, however, that these institutions remain ultimately ineffective because they merely reflect the distribution of power in the anarchic international system. We argue that international litigation provides economic spillovers that create opportunities for judicial free-riding and explore empirically how litigation in the World Trade Organization affects bilateral trade between countries involved in a trade dispute. We use a matching approach to compare the dynamics of trade flows between countries that experienced a panel ruling with trade relations of observably similar country pairs that did not experience a ruling. Based on this comparison we find that sectoral exports from complainant countries to the defendant increase by about $7.7 billion in the three years after a panel ruling. However, countries that have proactively filed a complaint and carried the main costs of litigation do not systematically gain more than less-active third parties that merely joined an existing trade dispute. This suggests that international judicial institutions can provide positive economic externalities and may thereby lead to a less power-based distribution of the gains from trade.

Item Type:	Article
Official URL:	https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/internatio...
Additional Information:	© 2015 The IO Foundation
Divisions:	International Relations
Subjects:	H Social Sciences > HF Commerce J Political Science > JA Political science (General) J Political Science > JX International law J Political Science > JZ International relations
JEL classification:	F - International Economics > F1 - Trade F - International Economics > F5 - International Relations and International Political Economy
Date Deposited:	13 Nov 2013 09:16
Last Modified:	12 Dec 2024 00:27
URI:	http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/id/eprint/54197

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• What is litigation in the WTO worth? (deposited 18 Apr 2012 13:21)
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