International Politics

Dispute Settlement in Trade & Environment Disputes: How does the WTO Mechanism Perform?

This research project analyzes how the WTO Dispute Settlement Understanding performs when dealing with a particular cluster of trade disputes. These disputes are characterized by trade barriers imposed for environmental and public health reasons; in this paper, they are referred to as T&E disputes. T&E disputes have been channeled through the WTO dispute settlement mechanisms, which contain strong enforcement mechanisms that are expected to deter non-compliance. Nonetheless, empirical evidence suggests that these disputes have a low probability of reaching a settlement and often generate final rulings that are not complied with (Busch and Reinhardt 2004; Davey 2005a). The study concentrates on three T&E disputes decided by the WTO between 1996 and 2001, identifies several aspects that distinguish these disputes, and argues that an alternative dispute resolution (ADR) procedure proposed by Brams and Taylor (1996, 1999), called Adjusted Winner (AW), may increase the chances of compliance and present the parties with a superior outcome. An application of AW based on data from interviews with government officials and policy experts generates an ADR outcome for each of the three cases. This is followed by a comparison between this outcome and the actual adjudication outcome in each dispute. The analysis shows that recourse to AW may provide more opportunities for compliance by presenting the parties with an outcome that is more fair, in terms of three criteria: efficiency, envy-freeness, and equitability. Turning to ADR is particularly appropriate when states’ concerns with their reputation have a limited role as an enforcement mechanism. I argue that developments of compliance theory that focus on this limited role of reputation offer a plausible explanation for the poor record of compliance that T&E disputes display. Based on Downs and Jones (2002, 2004), I argue that the WTO regime encompasses multiple sub-regimes with specific and segmented reputational consequences. I propose that the pattern of non-compliance observed in T&E disputes can be explained by the opportunity to insulate negative reputational consequences from other areas of the international trade regime that states value higher.

 

From Cristiane de Andrade Lucena Carneiro.

 

 

Publications of Cristiane de Andrade Lucena Carneiro

CARNEIRO, C. A. L. . Disputas Comerciais e Magnanimidade: Um Estudo do Mecanismo de Solução de Controvérsias da Organização Mundial de Comércio à Luz da Teoria dos Movimentos. Contexto Internacional, v. 30, p. 2, 2008.

CARNEIRO, C. A. L. . From the United Nations Arms Register to an Arms Trade Treaty - What Role for Delegation and Flexibility?. ILSA Journal of International and Comparative Law, v. 14, p. 1-30, 2008.

CARNEIRO, C. A. L. ; ELDEN, D. . Economic Sanctions, Leadership Survival, and Human Rights. University of Pennsylvania Journal of International Economic Law, v. 30, p. 534-634, 2009.

 

Lorena Guadalupe Barberia

Mini CV:

Barberia is a Doctor Professor in the Department of Political Science, University of São Paulo, principal researcher of the Research Center for Comparative and International Studies (NECI), principal researcher of the Center for Studies in Public Policy and Public Sector Economics (CEPESP) of the Getulio Vargas Foundation in São Paulo, and a research associate of the David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies at Harvard University. She received her doctoral degree from Getúlio Vargas Foundation-EAESP in Government and Public Administration, a Master degree in Public Policy from the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University and a degree in Economics and Spanish from the University of California, Berkeley. She worked in Ecuador and Panama as a Junior Economist and in research projects dealing with economies in transition at the Harvard Institute for International Development. From 2001 to April 2011, she was Program Associate at the David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies (DRCLAS) from Harvard University.
 

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Janina Onuki

Mini CV:

Professor Onuki obtained a degree in Social Sciences from the University of São Paulo (USP) in 1996 and masters and doctoral degrees in Political Science from USP. She was a visiting researcher at the Center for Latin American Studies at Georgetown University (USA, Washington, DC) and at the City University of New York (1999 to 2000). She is currently an associate professor of the International Relations Institute and the academic coordinator of the research lab in international negotiations in the DCP-USP (CAENI). Her field of interest is Political Science, especially Foreign Policy Analysis, in the following themes: policy, international regimes, and regional integration. She is also a CNPq Productivity Researcher, level-two.
 

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Cristiane de Andrade Lucena Carneiro

Mini CV:

Carneiro received a degree in Law in 1992 and a Masters degree in Political Science in 1997, both from the Federal University of Pernambuco, and a Ph.D. in Political Science from New York University in 2006. She was a visiting professor of the International Relations Institute (IRI) where she was postdoctoral research fellow. She is a researcher at the Center on International Negotiations (CAENI). Her areas of interest are dispute resolution, international regimes and human rights. She has publications on dispute settlement in the WTO, the design of international treaties, and on economic sanctions and human rights.
 

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