Multi-Level Judicial Trade Governance Without Justice? On the Role of Domestic Courts in the WTO Legal and Dispute Settlement System

Multi-Level Judicial Trade Governance Without Justice? On the Role of Domestic Courts in the WTO Legal and Dispute Settlement System
Author: Ernst-Ulrich Petersmann
Publisher:
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2013
Genre:
ISBN:

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The fragmented nature of national and international legal and dispute settlement regimes, and the formalistic nature of the customary international law rules on treaty interpretation and conflicts of laws, offer little guidance on how national and international judges should respond to the proliferation of competing jurisdictions and the resultant incentives for forum shopping and rule shopping by governments and non-governmental actors in international economic law. Due to their different jurisdictions, procedures and different rules of applicable laws, national and international judges often interpret international trade law from different (inter)national, (inter)governmental, constitutional and judicial perspectives. This paper explores the judicial functions of national and international judges to reach justified decisions based on positive law, on the basis of transparent, predictable and fair procedures, and to interpret international treaties "in conformity with principles of justice." Chapters I to III explain some of the "principles of justice" underlying international trade law and argue that international rules for a mutually beneficial division of labour among private citizens should be construed with due regard to the human rights obligations of governments. Chapters III and IV propose to strengthen international cooperation among national and international courts, for instance by negotiating additional WTO commitments to interpret domestic trade laws in conformity with the WTO obligations of the countries concerned and to settle WTO disputes over private rights primarily in domestic courts, without transforming essentially private disputes into disputes among governments.

Judicial Politics and International Cooperation

Judicial Politics and International Cooperation
Author: Arlo Poletti
Publisher: ECPR Press
Total Pages: 262
Release: 2024-08-22
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1785521918

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Judicial politics has emerged as a central feature of the multilateral trading system alongside a steep decline in the World Trade Organization’s ability to deliver negotiated trade liberalization. This book advances innovative arguments and presents original evidence to shed light on the important and surprisingly under-researched question of whether, and how, judicial politics has affected the prospects for cooperation in the WTO through multilateral trade rounds.

The WTO at Ten

The WTO at Ten
Author: Giorgio Sacerdoti
Publisher:
Total Pages: 508
Release: 2006
Genre:
ISBN: 9789287046734

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Bringing together articles by some of the leading policy-makers, including previous WTO Director-Generals, practitioners, scholars of international trade law, government officials, international civil servants, Members of the WTO Appellate Body, and judges from a number of international tribunals, this volume assesses the dispute settlement system during the first ten years of the World Trade Organization. It examines the relationship and balance between political governance and dispute settlement; the functioning of the dispute settlement procedures and various reform proposals; the contribution of the Appellate Body to the development of international trade law; and treaty interpretation in a number of international dispute settlement fora such as the WTO, the International Court of Justice, the European Court of Justice, and the Tribunal for the Law of the Sea. The book has its origins in a series of events commemorating the tenth anniversary of the creation of the WTO dispute settlement system and the Appellate Body.

Deference to the Legislature in WTO Challenges to Legislation

Deference to the Legislature in WTO Challenges to Legislation
Author: Daniel Lovric
Publisher: Kluwer Law International B.V.
Total Pages: 266
Release: 2010-01-01
Genre: Law
ISBN: 9041131450

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Challenges to domestic legislation before international tribunals are a growing phenomenon in public international law. Consequently, in the field of global trade, the degree of deference given by WTO tribunals to domestic legislatures in challenges to their legislation is an area of increasing importance to practitioners, government officials and academics. This timely work takes a new perspective on the way domestic law is treated at the international level. Using techniques of domestic constitutional law, it examines how international tribunals have treated challenges to legislation. The particular focus is WTO tribunals, but the book also draws on experiences from other international adjudicators, such as the European Court of Human Rights. Drawing from these examples, the author examines how international tribunals have (or have not) deferred to the opinions of the domestic legislature, and the legal techniques they've used in doing so. The treatment is detailed and comprehensive, contrasting and summarizing the relevant WTO case law.

International Adjudication on Trial

International Adjudication on Trial
Author: Sivan Shlomo Agon
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 352
Release: 2019-09-12
Genre: Law
ISBN: 019109336X

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Is the World Trade Organization (WTO) dispute settlement system (DSS) effective? How exactly is the effectiveness of this adjudicative system to be defined and measured? Is its effectiveness all about compliance? If not, what goals, beyond compliance, are the WTO DSS expected to achieve? Building on a theoretical model derived from the social sciences, this book lays down the analytical framework required to answer these questions, while crafting a revealing insider's account of the WTO DSS-one of the most important and debated sites of the evolving international judiciary. Drawing on interviews with WTO adjudicators, WTO Secretariat staff, ambassadors, trade delegates, and trade lawyers, the book offers an elaborate analysis of the various goals steering the DSS's work, the diverse roles it plays, the challenges it confronts, and the outcomes it produces. Through this insider look at the WTO DSS and detailed examination of landmark trade disputes, the book uncovers the oft-hidden dynamics of WTO adjudication and provides fresh perspective on the DSS's operation and the undercurrents affecting its effectiveness. Given the pivotal role the WTO DSS has assumed in the multilateral trading regime since its inception in 1995 and the systemic pressures it has recently come to face, this book makes an important contribution towards understanding and measuring the benefits (as well as the costs) this adjudicative body generates, while providing valuable insights into current debates on its reform.

The Role of the Judge in International Trade Regulation

The Role of the Judge in International Trade Regulation
Author: Thomas Cottier
Publisher: University of Michigan Press
Total Pages: 377
Release: 2009-12-22
Genre: Law
ISBN: 047202499X

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The WTO is generally seen as a key actor of globalization and, as such, has been the point of convergence of popular irritation worldwide. Many of the reproaches addressed to the WTO show civil societys concern with what is perceived as a democratic deficit in the way the organization operates. The main fear is to see trade rise as the ultimate value, prevailing over concerns such as health and environment. The Role of the Judge offers insight into how disputes are solved at the WTO level, into how the judicial branch interacts with the rest of the organization, and into the degree of sensitivity of the system to external input. The book sheds light on the judicial system governing the WTO and shows it to be the only truly multilateral system where disputes are solved by third-party adjudication. The book develops along three lines: the first a search for cases submitted to the WTO where the judge exceeded its authority; the second a comparison of the WTO with the operations of national judicial systems having different levels of integration, specifically the United States (federal level) and the EC (quasi-federal level); and the third an exploration of directions for the future of dispute settlement in the WTO. Reflecting the diversity of its contributors, this book addresses questions of economics, political science, and law, bringing an unusual level of multidisciplinarity to this topic and context. It is designed for both academic readers and practitioners, who will find it full of practical insights as well as rich and detailed analysis. Thomas Cottier is Professor of European and International Economic Law, University of Bern, and Managing Director, World Trade Institute, University of Bern. Petros C. Mavroidis is Professor of Law, University of Neuchâtel. He formerly worked in the Legal Affairs Division of the World Trade Organization. Patrick Blatter is Mavroidiss scientific collaborator.

The Legitimacy of International Trade Courts and Tribunals

The Legitimacy of International Trade Courts and Tribunals
Author: Robert Howse
Publisher: Studies on International Courts and Tribunals
Total Pages: 547
Release: 2018-04-12
Genre: Law
ISBN: 1108424473

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2.2 Procedural Rules and Issues

International Governance in the Wto

International Governance in the Wto
Author: Tomer Broude
Publisher: Cameron May
Total Pages: 352
Release: 2004
Genre: Foreign trade regulation
ISBN: 1874698848

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Why Comply? Domestic Politics and the Effectiveness of International Courts

Why Comply? Domestic Politics and the Effectiveness of International Courts
Author: Lauren J. Peritz
Publisher:
Total Pages: 189
Release: 2015
Genre:
ISBN:

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This dissertation asks: when do international courts promote cooperation among countries? I argue that international courts can successfully restore economic relations between disputing governments but their impact depends on domestic politics. When confronted with an adverse legal ruling from an international court, a defendant government must determine whether and when to comply. Governments are constrained by domestic institutional divisions and partisan conflict: "veto points." Countries with substantial divisions are less likely to comply because more political actors must coordinate to implement the ruling. As partisan divisions grow, government leaders are constrained by their domestic opposition and compliance becomes more difficult. The design of the international court contributes to this effect. Courts vary in their ability to sanction violations. When the court is designed to be flexible, imposing low costs for noncompliance, the impact of domestic politics is particularly pronounced. These arguments are tested with international trade disputes at the World Trade Organization (WTO) and the European Court of Justice (ECJ). The first empirical chapter uses WTO disputes to examine the impact of domestic politics in the defendant country on compliance with adverse legal rulings. Adverse rulings require a defendant government to remove trade barriers so this chapter assesses compliance using trade flows. I build a novel data set on compliance using the method of synthetic case control and product-level time-series trade data. I infer the defendant complied if trade flows increased after the dispute, relative to estimated levels that would have occurred in the absence of the ruling. The estimates show compliance problems are both widespread and systematically linked to domestic politics. Domestic constraints---measured in terms of veto points---hinder compliance. The second empirical chapter tests my main argument on the European Court of Justice. I show that domestic political constraints in European Union countries also impact compliance with adverse legal rulings. I focus on infringement disputes over trade-related issues, instances in which European member states imposed illegal barriers to intra-European commerce. This chapter uses a hierarchical model that captures the multi-level structure of the data. By examining intra-European trade over time, I show that adverse rulings lead to a modest increase in trade but this tendency is conditional on domestic politics. Defendant governments with many veto players appear impervious to adverse rulings. The findings indicate that ECJ rulings can prompt governments to open their markets to more European commerce, but that domestic politics can obstruct this process. The third empirical chapter evaluates the effectiveness of international dispute settlement along a different dimension: the time to resolve a dispute. Because prolonged lawsuits can buy defendants time to ``cheat'' at the expense of plaintiffs and other members of the international institution, they can have deleterious effects on cooperation that are similar to noncompliance. This chapter demonstrates that WTO and ECJ lawsuits against defendants with many domestic veto points lasted longer on average, before the countries acquiesced. Moreover, the ill effect of veto players on dispute resolution has been stronger in the WTO than the ECJ. I argue that the design of the international court mediates the impact of domestic veto players on dispute duration. In sum, my dissertation shows that international courts can successfully promote economic cooperation between countries but their effectiveness hinges on domestic politics.

Multilevel Constitutionalism for Multilevel Governance of Public Goods

Multilevel Constitutionalism for Multilevel Governance of Public Goods
Author: Ernst Ulrich Petersmann
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Total Pages: 416
Release: 2017-01-12
Genre: Law
ISBN: 1509909060

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This is the first legal monograph analysing multilevel governance of global 'aggregate public goods' (PGs) from the perspective of democractic, republican and cosmopolitan constitutionalism by using historical, legal, political and economic methods. It explains the need for a 'new philosophy of international law' in order to protect human rights and PGs more effectively and more legitimately. 'Constitutional approaches' are justified by the universal recognition of human rights and by the need to protect 'human rights', 'rule of law', 'democracy' and other 'principles of justice' that are used in national, regional and UN legal systems as indeterminate legal concepts. The study describes and criticizes the legal methodology problems of 'disconnected' governance in UN, GATT and WTO institutions as well as in certain areas of the external relations of the EU (like transatlantic free trade agreements). Based on 40 years of practical experiences of the author in German, European, UN, GATT and WTO governance institutions and of simultaneous academic teaching, this study develops five propositions for constituting, limiting, regulating and justifying multilevel governance for the benefit of citizens and their constitutional rights as 'constituent powers', 'democratic principals' and main 'republican actors', who must hold multilevel governance institutions and their limited 'constituted powers' legally, democratically and judicially more accountable.