Conditions for Compliance: Changing US Dispute Settlement Behavior under the GATT/WTO System
Project Leader
Department
Political Science
Abstract
The project looks at US foreign policy change with regard to dispute settlement. It examines the conditions under which the US is willing to settle disputes according to the GATT/WTO dispute settlement procedures. The conditions taken into consideration are: (1) the distribution of power between the US and its opponent (balanced or not balanced), (2) the US opponent's political regime (democratic or not democratic), (3) the degree of legalization of the respective dispute settlement procedure (diplomatic or judicial), and (4) the American president's fundamental foreign policy beliefs (unilateralist or multilateralist).
The purpose of the project is not to identify the single most relevant condition but rather to single out the constellations of conditions under which the US follows (or disregards) GATT/WTO procedures and thus the constellation of conditions that explain why the US is nowadays more willing to follow these procedures than in the past. To this end, the paper draws on a qualitative comparative analysis, or QCA, of 27 GATT/WTO disputes with US involvement. The analysis shows that the US consistently complies with GATT/WTO procedures if it either acts in the context of the highly legalized WTO procedures or if its opponent is a much less powerful, but democratic state. The analysis also demonstrates that the US disregards GATT/WTO procedures if it acts in the context of the hardly legalized GATT dispute settlement procedure and its opponent is either a non-democratic or powerful state.