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The Review of International Organizations

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03-07-2015

Enduring trade disputes: Disguised protectionism and duration and recurrence of international trade disputes

Author: Moonhawk Kim

Published in: The Review of International Organizations | Issue 3/2016

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Abstract

Why do some WTO trade disputes endure and recur while others do not? States have difficulty resolving trade conflicts when they involve certain types of trade-restrictive domestic regulations. While such regulations vary in their extent of legitimacy—fulfilling non-trade domestic regulatory objectives and availability of less trade-restrictive options—complainant states cannot always distinguish legitimate barriers from illegitimate ones. In such scenarios of disguised protectionism, which I argue is most prevalent with policies involving WTO’s Sanitary and Phytosanitary (SPS) Agreement, disputants confront difficulties concluding their disputes. Disputes last longer and are more likely to recur. I test the argument against a data set of WTO disputes structured in an innovative manner—one that links together related and recurring disputes into single conflicts. Both an event history analysis of conflict duration and a count analysis of conflict recurrence using this data strongly support this argument.

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I thank Leslie Johns for suggesting this framework for casting the two types. The formulation is also similar to Carrubba (2005), in which two countries have different costs to compliance.

The existence of alternative policies that are multilaterally more acceptable as a component of legitimacy is similar to Pelc (2010).

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Title: Enduring trade disputes: Disguised protectionism and duration and recurrence of international trade disputes
Author: Moonhawk Kim
Publication date: 03-07-2015
Publisher: Springer US
Published in: The Review of International Organizations / Issue 3/2016
Print ISSN: 1559-7431
Electronic ISSN: 1559-744X
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11558-015-9230-z

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