The WTO Dispute Settlement Understanding: Less Is More

Abstract

The Agreement Establishing the World Trade Organization (WTO Agreement) dramatically expands and improves the trade rules of the predecessor General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), thereby facilitating trade, economic growth and jobs in the increasingly interdependent global economy. Supporters of trade liberalization generally welcome these new rules, including in particular the dramatically improved procedures for settling disputes. 1 However, some environmental and labor groups have expressed concerns as to whether the new dispute settlement rules subordinate or diminish non-trade-policy objectives. These concerns have echoed loudly in sound-bite denunciations of the WTO by some American politicians advocating economic nationalism. Some claim that faceless, unelected, unaccountable bureaucrats in Geneva have usurped U.S. sovereignty by writing rules for Americans that should be determined only by Americans. In his campaign for the presidency, for example, Patrick Buchanan took up the chorus most recendy popularized by Ross Perot in his opposition in 1992 to the North American Free Trade Agreement. Buchanan's success in early primaries provoked numerous polls and extensive commentary analyzing whether support for trade liberalization had diminished.