The United States and Trade Disputes in the World Trade Organization: Hegemony Constrained or Confirmed?

Zusammenfassung

---

This paper examines whether the World Trade Organization functions to reinforce American dominance (or hegemony) of the world economy via an analysis of trade disputes involving the US. This allows the paper to assess whether the US does better than other countries in this judicialised forum: and in so doing enhance the competitive prospects of their firms. The results are equivocal. The US does best in the early phases of a dispute, where political power is important. It does less well as the process develops.

Siehe den Gesamtinhalt dieses Dokumentes

Auszug

---

The United States and Trade Disputes in the World Trade Organization: Hegemony Constrained or Confirmed?

'One of the main functions of the WTO is to tie the American Gulliver down.'

(de Jonquieres 2004, p. 19)

Introduction

The creation of the Dispute Settlement Body (DSB) of the World Trade Organization (WTO) was regarded by many observers as a key achievement of the Uruguay Round negotiations (Hart 2002, Jackson 1998). The achievement lay in the creation of a rules-based system for resolving trade disputes, where all parties had equal rights and obligations, in preference to the power-based system where the law of the jungle prevailed. In the years since its creation, the DSB has been vastly more active than its GATT predecessor. This has been hailed as proof that the WTO represents a rules-based approach to international trade disputes that helps the weak defend themselves against the strong (Gilpin 2001). Yet, the operation of the disputes process is not without its critics. The losing side in a dispute is required to bring its regulation into conformity with WTO provisions - or face sanctions. Developing states, often reliant on a small number of export products or services for their economic livelihood, are not in a position to appeal against WTO decisions. A more fundamental criticism, one central to this paper, is that the WTO's very rules are not neutral, but reflect hegemony: the dominance of American rules, norms and practices about international commerce.

The paper proceeds as follows. First we discuss the concept of hegemony and its utility for understanding international economic relations. In the next section, we develop a methodology designed to gauge the extent to which the US exer...

Siehe den Gesamtinhalt dieses Dokumentes

---