Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®
Articles 1 - 5 of 5
Full-Text Articles in Law
Pricing Compliance: When Formal Remedies Displace Reputational Sanctions, Rachel Brewster
Pricing Compliance: When Formal Remedies Displace Reputational Sanctions, Rachel Brewster
Faculty Scholarship
The conventional wisdom in international law is that dispute resolution institutions sharpen the reputational costs to states. This article challenges this understanding by examining how the inclusion of dispute resolution tribunals and remedy regimes can alter reputational analysis by shifting the audience¹s understanding of how mandatory a treaty's substantive obligations are. Drawing on the distinction between prices and sanctions, this article contests the assumption that the introduction of a remedy regime in international agreements will regularly increase compliance with the treaty¹s substantive terms. Instead, some remedy regimes may 'price' deviations from the treaty¹s terms and thereby facilitate breaches of the …
The Remedy Gap: Institutional Design, Retaliation, And Trade Law Enforcement, Rachel Brewster
The Remedy Gap: Institutional Design, Retaliation, And Trade Law Enforcement, Rachel Brewster
Faculty Scholarship
One of the major innovations of the World Trade Organization’s (“WTO”) Dispute Settlement Understanding (“DSU”) is the regulation of sanctions in response to violations of trade law. The DSU requires governments to receive multilateral approval before suspending trade concessions and limits the extent of retaliation to prospective damages. In addition, the DSU permits governments to impose only conditional sanctions: sanctions for violations that continue after the dispute resolution process is complete. This enforcement regime creates a remedy gap: governments cannot respond, even to obvious breaches, until the end of the dispute resolution process (and then only to the extent of …
The Surprising Benefits To Developing Countries Of Linking International Trade And Intellectual Property, Rachel Brewster
The Surprising Benefits To Developing Countries Of Linking International Trade And Intellectual Property, Rachel Brewster
Faculty Scholarship
The World Trade Organization's Trade Related Intellectual Property (TRIPS) Agreement is controversial, requiring WTO members to establish a host of domestic institutions to support intellectual property rights, including substantive laws creating rights and a host of enforcement procedures. Trade scholars and development advocates frequently criticize the agreement as economically harmful to developing countries. This Article does not argue that the TRIPS Agreement is beneficial for developing states, but highlights how the agreement has produced some surprising benefits over the last decade and a half. First, the TRIPS Agreement's requirement that developing states make the domestic enforcement of intellectual property rules …
Shadow Unilateralism: Enforcing International Trade Law At The Wto, Rachel Brewster
Shadow Unilateralism: Enforcing International Trade Law At The Wto, Rachel Brewster
Faculty Scholarship
This short essay briefly traces the evolution of trade law enforcement from the the GATT to the WTO regime. The WTO's Dispute Settlement Understanding (DSU) is widely viewed as a major innovation from the GATT regime in that it subordinates unilateral enforcement of trade law to a rule-based system of multilateral enforcement. I recognize the successes of the WTO regime but the institution effective permits (if not encourages) the unilateral enforcement of trade law outside of the DSU framework Specifically, I examine how the DSU system only provides a prospective remedy - that is, the DSU permits retaliation only for …
Rule-Based Dispute Resolution In International Trade Law, Rachel Brewster
Rule-Based Dispute Resolution In International Trade Law, Rachel Brewster
Faculty Scholarship
Why does the United States ever prefer to settle disputes under a system of rules rather than a system of negotiations? Powerful states are advantaged by negotiation-based approaches to settling disagreements because they have the resources to resolve individual disputes on favorable terms. By contrast, rule-based dispute resolution advantages weak states as a means to hold powerful states to the terms of their agreements. Then why did the United States want a rule-based system to settle international disputes in the WTO? To answer this question, we have to understand domestic politics as well as international politics. International constraints, particularly international …