Developing Countries, Dispute Settlement, and the Advisory Centre on WTO Law

Critical appraisals of the current and potential benefits from developing country engagement in the WTO focus mainly on the Doha Round of negotiations. This paper examines a different aspect of developing country participation in the WTO: use of the WTO dispute settlement system to enforce foreign m...

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Main Authors:	Bown, Chad P., McCulloch, Rachel
Format:	Journal Article
Language:	EN
Published:	2012
Subjects:	Conflict Conflict Resolution Alliances D740 Trade Policy International Trade Organizations F130 International Law K330 International Linkages to Development Role of International Organizations O190
Online Access:	http://hdl.handle.net/10986/5443

id	okr-10986-5443
recordtype	oai_dc
spelling	okr-10986-54432021-04-23T14:02:22Z Developing Countries, Dispute Settlement, and the Advisory Centre on WTO Law Bown, Chad P. McCulloch, Rachel Conflict Conflict Resolution Alliances D740 Trade Policy International Trade Organizations F130 International Law K330 International Linkages to Development Role of International Organizations O190 Critical appraisals of the current and potential benefits from developing country engagement in the WTO focus mainly on the Doha Round of negotiations. This paper examines a different aspect of developing country participation in the WTO: use of the WTO dispute settlement system to enforce foreign market access rights already negotiated in earlier rounds of multilateral negotiations. We examine data on developing country use from 1995 through 2008 of the WTO Dispute Settlement Understanding (DSU) to enforce foreign market access. The data reveal three notable trends: developing countries' sustained rate of self-enforcement actions despite declining use of the DSU by developed countries, developing countries' increased use of the DSU to self-enforce their access to the markets of developing as well as developed countries, and the prevalence of disputes targeting highly observable causes of lost foreign market access, such as antidumping, countervailing duties, and safeguards. The paper also examines how introduction of the Advisory Centre on WTO Law (ACWL) into the WTO system in 2001 has affected developing countries' use of the DSU to self-enforce their foreign market access rights. A first pass at the data indicates that developing country use of the ACWL mirrors their use of the DSU more broadly; the ACWL has had little effect in terms of introducing new countries to DSU self-enforcement. A closer look at the data reveals evidence on at least three channels through which the ACWL may be enhancing developing countries' ability to self-enforce foreign market access: increased initiation of sole-complainant cases, more extensive pursuit of the DSU legal process for any given case, and initiation of disputes over smaller values of lost trade. 2012-03-30T07:32:51Z 2012-03-30T07:32:51Z 2010 Journal Article Journal of International Trade and Economic Development 09638199 http://hdl.handle.net/10986/5443 EN http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/igo World Bank Journal Article
repository_type	Digital Repository
institution_category	Foreign Institution
institution	Digital Repositories
building	World Bank Open Knowledge Repository
collection	World Bank
language	EN
topic	Conflict Conflict Resolution Alliances D740 Trade Policy International Trade Organizations F130 International Law K330 International Linkages to Development Role of International Organizations O190
spellingShingle	Conflict Conflict Resolution Alliances D740 Trade Policy International Trade Organizations F130 International Law K330 International Linkages to Development Role of International Organizations O190 Bown, Chad P. McCulloch, Rachel Developing Countries, Dispute Settlement, and the Advisory Centre on WTO Law
relation	http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/igo
description	Critical appraisals of the current and potential benefits from developing country engagement in the WTO focus mainly on the Doha Round of negotiations. This paper examines a different aspect of developing country participation in the WTO: use of the WTO dispute settlement system to enforce foreign market access rights already negotiated in earlier rounds of multilateral negotiations. We examine data on developing country use from 1995 through 2008 of the WTO Dispute Settlement Understanding (DSU) to enforce foreign market access. The data reveal three notable trends: developing countries' sustained rate of self-enforcement actions despite declining use of the DSU by developed countries, developing countries' increased use of the DSU to self-enforce their access to the markets of developing as well as developed countries, and the prevalence of disputes targeting highly observable causes of lost foreign market access, such as antidumping, countervailing duties, and safeguards. The paper also examines how introduction of the Advisory Centre on WTO Law (ACWL) into the WTO system in 2001 has affected developing countries' use of the DSU to self-enforce their foreign market access rights. A first pass at the data indicates that developing country use of the ACWL mirrors their use of the DSU more broadly; the ACWL has had little effect in terms of introducing new countries to DSU self-enforcement. A closer look at the data reveals evidence on at least three channels through which the ACWL may be enhancing developing countries' ability to self-enforce foreign market access: increased initiation of sole-complainant cases, more extensive pursuit of the DSU legal process for any given case, and initiation of disputes over smaller values of lost trade.
format	Journal Article
author	Bown, Chad P. McCulloch, Rachel
author_facet	Bown, Chad P. McCulloch, Rachel
author_sort	Bown, Chad P.
title	Developing Countries, Dispute Settlement, and the Advisory Centre on WTO Law
title_short	Developing Countries, Dispute Settlement, and the Advisory Centre on WTO Law
title_full	Developing Countries, Dispute Settlement, and the Advisory Centre on WTO Law
title_fullStr	Developing Countries, Dispute Settlement, and the Advisory Centre on WTO Law
title_full_unstemmed	Developing Countries, Dispute Settlement, and the Advisory Centre on WTO Law
title_sort	developing countries, dispute settlement, and the advisory centre on wto law
publishDate	2012
url	http://hdl.handle.net/10986/5443
_version_	1764395071288901632

Developing Countries, Dispute Settlement, and the Advisory Centre on WTO Law

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