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A Private And Efficient Approach To Us-China Trade: Bringing A Non-Violation Case In The Wto, Daniel C.K. Chow, Ian M. Sheldon

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

When Joe Biden defeated Donald Trump to become president of the United States in 2020, many observers hoped that Biden would reset the troubled US-China trade relationship. The Trump administration had abandoned the rules-based approach to international trade of the World Trade Organization (WTO) and adopted a power-based approach instead. Using a power-based approach, the United States imposed or threatened sanctions if China did not dismantle its state-led economy and terminate the use of industrial subsidies to support its domestic industries. The United States also crippled the dispute settlement system of the WTO so that nations could not challenge US …

Tribunalizing Sovereign Debt: Argentina's Experience With Investor-State Dispute Settlement, Stephen K. Park, Tim R. Samples

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

The global sovereign debt market, lacking a formal bankruptcy regime or binding regulatory oversight, is fundamentally shaped by the specter of conflicts between debtors that refuse to pay and holdout creditors that refuse to settle. Never was this more evident than in Argentina's most recent sovereign debt crisis, which spurred daring, innovative, and often controversial legal strategies. This Article focuses on one of the legacies of Argentina's sovereign debt crisis: the use of investor-state arbitration under international investment law to enforce sovereign bond contracts. Following Argentina's financial collapse in 2001, private creditors brought dozens of cases against Argentina before the …

(De)Legitimation At The Wto Dispute Settlement Mechanism, Cosette D. Creamer, Zuzanna Godzimirska

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

International courts employ a variety of legitimation strategies in order to establish and maintain a sound basis of support among their constituents. Existing studies on the legitimating efforts and legitimacy of the World Trade Organization's (WTO) judicial bodies have relied largely on theoretical or normative priors about what makes them legitimate. In contrast, this Article directly connects the study of courts' legitimating efforts with their effects by empirically mapping the reception of the WTO Dispute Settlement Mechanism's (DSM) exercise of authority by the system's primary constituents--WTO Members. Using an original data set of WTO Member statements within meetings of the …

The World Trade Organization's Dispute Settlement Resolution In United States--Anti-Dumping Act Of 1916, Jeffrey S. Beckington

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

The evolving jurisprudence of the World Trade Organization (WTO) is a fascinating phenomenon still in its early stages. That it exists is testament to a recognition by the WTO's Member States that a substantial ceding of national sovereignty to the WTO is necessary, or at least advisable, in order to support an international mechanism designed to facilitate and maintain orderly trade in goods and services across national boundaries. This partial relinquishment of jurisdiction, however, understandably has been accompanied by certain misgivings and hedging by Member States individually and particularly by the United States.

The boldness and tension underlying the political …

The Limits Of Economic Power: Section 301 And The World Trade Organization Dispute Settlement System, C. O'Neal Taylor

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

Since World War 1I, the United States has sought trade liberalization through the use of multilateral and unilateral actions under the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) and Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974, respectively. Unilateralism by the United States has involved the forceful opening of foreign markets by the threat of sanctions, such as blocking access to the U.S. market. Such unilateral actions led the world trading system into the most recent multilateral negotiations, the Uruguay Round. As a result, the United States conceded to an effort to achieve trade liberalization through the expansion of GATT …