Positive Political-Economy Analyses of the Dispute Settlement System at the World Trade Organization

在2000年4月至2002年3月的两年时间里，调查人员共同对世界贸易组织(WTO)的争端解决机制进行了理论和实证研究。这项研究的最初目的是测试为解释国内裁决结果而开发的理性选择模型的实用性。我们的研究不仅包括对世贸组织秘书处的广泛采访，也包括对美国政府和欧盟总部的广泛采访。过去两年的调查结果过于广泛，难以用短篇幅进行总结，但其中许多都属于世界贸易体系日益合法化的前因后果的范畴。随着世贸组织的成立，多边贸易体制变得高度合法化，其原因(或目的)之一是对国内政治的管理。换句话说，政策制定者已经发现，国际层面的合法化制度有助于促进国内经济调整。就合法化的效果而言，我们发现合法化提供了一个更公平的竞争环境和更高的合规程度。由于关贸总协定争端解决机制是一种非常外交的方式，国家权力在很大程度上有影响争端结果的空间。WTO的法制化制度具有弱化权力不对称的效果。此外，尽管关贸总协定制度在遵守规则方面存在一些不足之处，但世贸组织似乎伴随着更高程度的遵守，尽管有一些例外。从理论上讲，尽管假设民族国家是统一的、理性的行为者的模型在一定程度上被证明是有用的，但正如我们预期的那样，越来越明显的是，有必要考虑到各种国内限制的影响，以了解世贸组织争端解决的性质。

During the two-year period between April 2000-March 2002, the investigators have jointly conducted theoretical and empirical research on the dispute settlement system of the World Trade Organization (WTO). The initial purpose of the research was to test the utility of rational-choice models that had been developed to explain the results of domestic adjudication. Our research included extensive interviews not only at the WTO secretariat but also at the US government and the EU headquarters.The findings over the past two years are too extensive to be summarized in a short space, but many of them fall under the rubric of the causes and effects of the increasing legalization of the world trading system. With the establishment of the WTO, the multilateral trading system has become highly legalized, and one of the causes (or purposes) turns out to be the management of domestic politics. In other words, policy makers have found out that a legalized system at the international level is useful for facilitating domestic economics adjustments. In terms of the effects of legalization, we have found that legalization provides a more level playing field and a higher degree of compliance. Because the GATT dispute settlement system was a very diplomatic approach, there was room for national power to affect the results of disputes to a large degree. The legalized system at the WTO has an effect of attenuating power asymmetry. Also, while the GATT system left something to be desired in terms of rule compliance, the WTO seems to be accompanied by a higher degree of compliance, albeit with some exceptions.Theoretically, while the models that assume nation-states to be unitary, rational actors prove useful to some extent, as we had expected, it has become increasing clear that it is necessary to take into account the effects of various domestic constraints to understand the nature of dispute settlement at the WTO.