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International Law

Case Western Reserve University School of Law

Series

Compliance

Publication Year

Articles 1 - 2 of 2

Full-Text Articles in Law

The Limits Of Wto Adjudication: Is Compliance The Problem?, Juscelino F. Colares Jan 2011

The Limits Of Wto Adjudication: Is Compliance The Problem?, Juscelino F. Colares

Faculty Publications

Mainstream international trade law scholars have commented positively on the work of World Trade Organization (WTO) adjudicators. This favorable view is both echoed and challenged by empirical scholarship that shows a high disparity between Complainant and Respondent success rates (Complainants win between 8 and 9 percent of the disputes). Regardless of how one interprets these results, mainstream theorists, especially legalists, believe more is to be done to strengthen the system, and they point to instances of member recalcitrance to implement rulings as a serious problem. This article posits that such attempts to strengthen compliance are ill-advised. After discussing prior empirical …


International Law In Crisis: A Qualitative Empirical Contribution To The Compliance Debate, Michael P. Scharf Jan 2009

International Law In Crisis: A Qualitative Empirical Contribution To The Compliance Debate, Michael P. Scharf

Faculty Publications

In the aftermath of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 21, Professors Jack Goldsmith and Eric Posner published The Limits of International Law, a potentially revolutionary book that employs rational choice theory to argue that international law is really just “politics” and does not render a “compliance pull” on State decisionmakers. Critics have pointed out that Goldsmith and Posner’s identification of the role of international law in each of their case studies is largely conjectural, and that what is needed is qualitative empirical data that identifies the international law-based arguments that were actually made and the policy-makers’ responses to such …