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The Limits Of Wto Adjudication: Is Compliance The Problem?, Juscelino F. Colares
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 …
A Theory Of Wto Adjudication: From Empirical Analysis To Biased Rule Development, Juscelino F. Colares
A Theory Of Wto Adjudication: From Empirical Analysis To Biased Rule Development, Juscelino F. Colares
Faculty Publications
The positive theory of litigation predicts that, under certain conditions, plaintiffs and defendants achieve an unremarkable and roughly equivalent share of litigation success. This Article, grounded in an empirical analysis of WTO adjudication from 1995 through 27, reveals a high disparity between Complainant and Respondent success rates: Complainants win roughly ninety percent of the disputes. This disparity transcends case type, party identity, income level, and other litigant-specific characteristics. After analyzing and discarding standard empirical and theoretical alternative explanations for the systematic disparity in success rates, this study demonstrates, through an examination of patterns in WTO adjudicators' notorious decisions, that biased …