Legalization in context: The design of the WTO’s dispute settlement system

Elsig, Manfred (2017). Legalization in context: The design of the WTO’s dispute settlement system. The British Journal of Politics and International Relations, 19(2), pp. 304-319. Sage 10.1177/1369148117690890

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This article asks why the dispute settlement provisions of the multilateral trading system underwent significant reforms during the negotiations that led to the creation of the World Trade Organization (WTO) in 1995. Why did the leading trading powers accept a highly legalized system that departed from established political–diplomatic forms of settling disputes? The contribution of this article is threefold. First, it complements existing accounts that exclusively focus on the United States with a novel explanation that takes account of contextual factors. Second, it offers an in-depth empirical case study based on interviews with negotiators who were involved and novel archival evidence on the creation of the new WTO dispute settlement system. Third, by unpacking the long-standing puzzle of why states designed a highly legalized system, it addresses selected blind spots of the legalization and the rational design literatures with the aim of providing a better understanding about potential paths leading toward significant changes in legalization.

Item Type:

Journal Article (Original Article)

Division/Institute:

11 Centers of Competence > KPM Center for Public Management
03 Faculty of Business, Economics and Social Sciences > Other Institutions > Teaching Staff, Faculty of Business, Economics and Social Sciences
02 Faculty of Law > Department of Economic Law > World Trade Institute
10 Strategic Research Centers > World Trade Institute

UniBE Contributor:

Elsig, Manfred

Subjects:

300 Social sciences, sociology & anthropology > 320 Political science
300 Social sciences, sociology & anthropology > 380 Commerce, communications & transportation

ISSN:

1369-1481

Publisher:

Sage

Language:

English

Submitter:

Pablo Rahul Das

Date Deposited:

31 Mar 2017 17:08

Last Modified:

05 Dec 2022 15:04

Publisher DOI:

10.1177/1369148117690890

BORIS DOI:

10.7892/boris.98405

URI:

https://boris.unibe.ch/id/eprint/98405

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