IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/wti/papers/116.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Gravitation or Discrimination? Determinants of Litigation in the World Trade Organization

Author

Listed:
  • Bernauer, Thomas
  • Sattler, Thomas

Abstract

The strong presence of large countries in World Trade Organization (WTO) dispute settlement and the absence of very poor ones have raised concerns that increasing legalisation in the global trading system has not diminished discrimination against less powerful countries as much as expected. This article examines dispute initiations in all WTO member state dyads in 1995–2003 to shed more light on this issue. The analysis suggests that the main driver of dispute initiation is a gravitational one: larger economies and bigger traders are more likely to become involved in trade disputes primarily because their econo- mies are more diversified, and also because greater market size makes them more attractive targets of litigation. While evidence is not found for discriminatory effects against countries with small legal capacity, the results of the article point to a more complex form of power bias – namely a preponderance effect. They suggest that disputes among country dyads including a much more powerful defendant than complainant or vice versa are dealt with outside the WTO. This finding is potentially worrying because it is, arguably, easier to reduce legal capacity differences than to reduce power differences.

Suggested Citation

  • Bernauer, Thomas & Sattler, Thomas, 2010. "Gravitation or Discrimination? Determinants of Litigation in the World Trade Organization," Papers 116, World Trade Institute.
  • Handle: RePEc:wti:papers:116
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.wti.org/media/filer_public/2f/4d/2f4d04cb-1382-4282-a36c-ffef2761e417/wileybernauer.pdf
    File Function: First version
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Chad P. Bown, 2005. "Trade Remedies and World Trade Organization Dispute Settlement: Why Are So Few Challenged?," The Journal of Legal Studies, University of Chicago Press, vol. 34(2), pages 515-555, June.
    2. Andrew T. Guzman & Beth A. Simmons, 2005. "Power Plays and Capacity Constraints: The Selection of Defendants in World Trade Organization Disputes," The Journal of Legal Studies, University of Chicago Press, vol. 34(2), pages 557-598, June.
    3. Bergstrand, Jeffrey H, 1985. "The Gravity Equation in International Trade: Some Microeconomic Foundations and Empirical Evidence," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 67(3), pages 474-481, August.
    4. Douglas Lemke & William Reed, 2001. "The Relevance of Politically Relevant Dyads," Journal of Conflict Resolution, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 45(1), pages 126-144, February.
    5. Kristian Skrede Gleditsch, 2002. "Expanded Trade and GDP Data," Journal of Conflict Resolution, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 46(5), pages 712-724, October.
    6. Horn, Henrik & Mavroidis, Petros C., 2008. "The WTO Dispute Settlement System 1995–2006: Some Descriptive Statistics," Working Paper Series 740, Research Institute of Industrial Economics.
    7. Marc L. Busch, 2000. "Democracy, Consultation, and the Paneling of Disputes under GATT," Journal of Conflict Resolution, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 44(4), pages 425-446, August.
    8. Horn, Henrik & Mavroidis, Petros C & Nordström, Håkan, 1999. "Is The Use Of The WTO Dispute Settlement System Biased?," CEPR Discussion Papers 2340, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Manfred Elsig, 2010. "The World Trade Organization at work: Performance in a member-driven milieu," The Review of International Organizations, Springer, vol. 5(3), pages 345-363, September.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Aydin B. Yildirim & J. Tyson Chatagnier & Arlo Poletti & Dirk De Bièvre, 2018. "The internationalization of production and the politics of compliance in WTO disputes," The Review of International Organizations, Springer, vol. 13(1), pages 49-75, March.
    2. Fouad Pervez, 2015. "Waiting for election season," The Review of International Organizations, Springer, vol. 10(2), pages 265-303, June.
    3. Chad P. Bown, 2010. "China's WTO Entry: Antidumping, Safeguards, and Dispute Settlement," NBER Chapters, in: China's Growing Role in World Trade, pages 281-337, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    4. Tan Li & Larry D. Qiu, 2021. "Beyond trade creation: Preferential trade agreements and trade disputes," Pacific Economic Review, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 26(1), pages 23-53, February.
    5. Jeheung Ryu & Randall W. Stone, 2018. "Plaintiffs by proxy: A firm-level approach to WTO dispute resolution," The Review of International Organizations, Springer, vol. 13(2), pages 273-308, June.
    6. Kara M. Reynolds & Chad P. Bown, 2014. "Trade Flows and Trade Disputes," Working Papers 2014-05, American University, Department of Economics.
    7. Caruso Raul, 2003. "The Impact of International Economic Sanctions on Trade: An Empirical Analysis," Peace Economics, Peace Science, and Public Policy, De Gruyter, vol. 9(2), pages 1-36, April.
    8. Bernauer, Thomas & Spilker, Gabriele, 2010. "Escalation dynamics in WTO disputes over environment, health and safety issues," Papers 89, World Trade Institute.
    9. Chad Bown & Kara Reynolds, 2015. "Trade flows and trade disputes," The Review of International Organizations, Springer, vol. 10(2), pages 145-177, June.
    10. Timothy Meyer, 2017. "Explaining energy disputes at the World Trade Organization," International Environmental Agreements: Politics, Law and Economics, Springer, vol. 17(3), pages 391-410, June.
    11. Bown, Chad, 2007. "Developing Countries and Enforcement of Trade Agreements: Why Dispute Settlement Is Not Enough," CEPR Discussion Papers 6459, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    12. Firanchuk, A., 2017. "The Determinants Influencing Trade Outcomes of WTO Disputes," Journal of the New Economic Association, New Economic Association, vol. 34(2), pages 143-164.
    13. Lee, Jiwon & Wittgenstein, Teresa, 2017. "Weak vs. Strong Ties: Explaining Early Settlement in WTO Disputes," ILE Working Paper Series 7, University of Hamburg, Institute of Law and Economics.
    14. Serrano Caballero, Enriqueta & Ojo, Marianne, 2019. "Trade Negotiations and Global Relations: Emerging Players and Actors," MPRA Paper 92105, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    15. Maggi, Giovanni & Staiger, Robert W., 2020. "Learning by ruling and trade disputes," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 126(C).
    16. Boza, Sofía, 2016. "Determinants of SPS notification submissions for Latin American WTO members," Papers 970, World Trade Institute.
    17. Dirk Bièvre & Ilaria Espa & Arlo Poletti, 2017. "No iceberg in sight: on the absence of WTO disputes challenging fossil fuel subsidies," International Environmental Agreements: Politics, Law and Economics, Springer, vol. 17(3), pages 411-425, June.
    18. Sofía Boza & Jazmín Muñoz, 2017. "Factors underlying sanitary and phytosanitary regulation for food and agricultural imports notified by WTO members," The Journal of International Trade & Economic Development, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 26(6), pages 712-723, August.
    19. Boza, Sofia & Fernandez, Felipe, 2015. "Is it only suitable for a few? WTO member participation in Specific Trade Concerns and Disputes on SPS/TBT according to their income levels," 2015 Conference, August 9-14, 2015, Milan, Italy 211368, International Association of Agricultural Economists.
    20. Francois, Joseph & Horn, Henrik & Kaunitz, Niklas, 2008. "Trading Profiles and Developing Country Participation in the WTO Dispute Settlement System," Working Paper Series 730, Research Institute of Industrial Economics.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:wti:papers:116. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Morven McLean (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/wtibech.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.