Collaborative Research: The Role of Legal Capacity in WTO Dispute Settlement

世界贸易组织(WTO)的裁决制度被广泛吹捧为比当今任何此类多边机构都更成功。根据传统观点，关键是世贸组织的法律主义架构，使其成为权力导向型经济外交世界中的法治孤岛。支持者认为，由于在世贸组织争端程序中“权利凌驾于力量之上”，发展中国家在此类贸易冲突中面临着一个相当公平的竞争环境。较贫穷国家参与WTO争端并在争端中获胜的可能性真的与较富裕国家一样大吗？只有具备足够的法律能力，成员国才能利用WTO强大的“法治”。法律能力被定义为准备和起诉案件所需的制度资源。发展中国家缺乏这种能力，尽管程度不一。PI的假设是，考虑到具有相同重要性和潜力的案件，较贫穷的国家向世贸组织提出申诉的可能性将比发达国家低得多。同样，一旦提起诉讼，较贫穷的原告将不太可能诱使被告松绑。当然，这些偏见也可以追溯到以权力为导向的劣势，比如对大市场或捐赠的援助和优惠项目的不对称依赖。然而，PI认为，即使控制与权力相关的变量，法律能力也很重要。这项提议将收集新的数据。这项创新是一份可靠的清单，列出了数百起从未作为WTO申诉提交的潜在争端，涉及数十个州，使用的是官方消息来源。国际刑事法院还建议使用明确界定的业务措施，收集关于法律能力、法律价值和每一潜在争端的突出程度的原始指标。该项目将包括对所有146个世贸组织成员代表团的调查，并辅之以对精英的深入采访。私法协会将使用关于“非案件”的新数据以及私家律师协会在以前发表的工作中提出的申诉数据，评估法律能力对争端发起和结果的影响。拟议的研究创新之处在于强调了对正常运作的“法治”制度中法律能力的要求。迄今为止，关于国际法的文献忽视了这一基本观点，尽管这种能力在国内法律背景下具有显露的重要性。该项目还将提供有关“非案例”的非同寻常的新数据，这些数据被广泛认为是对国际机构进行实证分析的“圣杯”。这些数据将使学者能够明确调查在仅限于正式提交的投诉的研究中可能存在的选择偏见。对于迅速增长的贸易争端工作来说，这种潜在的偏见仍然是最重要的问号。由于国际投资委员会在使用平行观察单位(正式提交争端)的出版工作中仔细细化了拟议研究的概念和操作措施，而且由于国际投资委员会与世贸组织相关组织和个人建立了密切联系，因此该项目是可行的。国际投资委员会将通过各种渠道传播结果数据，除了提供与正式投诉有关的新变量外，还将提供第一批关于“非争端”的公开数据。调查结果将有助于扩大代表不足的团体参与世贸组织诉讼的范围，揭示公共赞助的法律援助和培训项目的有效性，这些项目旨在帮助发展中国家更有效地使用该制度的规则。最后，该项目的调查结果将有助于学者和外交官评估当前一轮世贸组织贸易谈判(以及其他地区性贸易安排)中关于争端解决制度优化设计的辩论的后果。

The adjudication regime of the World Trade Organization (WTO) is widely touted as more successful than any such multilateral institution today. According to conventional wisdom, the key is the WTO's legalistic architecture, making it an island of the rule of law in a world of power-oriented economic diplomacy. Proponents argue that, because "right perseveres over might" in WTO dispute proceedings, developing countries face a reasonably level playing field in such trade conflicts. Are poorer countries indeed as likely to participate and prevail in WTO disputes as their wealthier counterparts?Member-states can only take advantage of the WTO's robust "rule of law" if they have adequate legal capacity, defined as the institutional resources required to prepare and prosecute a case. Developing countries lack such capacity, albeit to varying degrees. The PI's hypothesize that, given cases with the same salience and potential, a poorer country will be much less likely to bring a WTO complaint than will a developed country. Likewise, a poorer complainant will be less likely to induce a defendant to liberalize once a suit is filed. Of course, these biases could also trace to power-oriented disadvantages, such as asymmetric dependence on large markets or on donated aid and preference programs. The PI's contend, however, that legal capacity matters even controlling for power-related variables.This proposal will gather new data. The innovation is a reliable list of hundreds of potential disputes never filed as WTO complaints, involving scores of states, using an official source. The PI's also propose to collect original indicators of legal capacity, legal merits, and the salience of each potential dispute, using well-defined operational measures. The project will include a survey of the delegations of all 146 WTO members, supplemented by in-depth elite interviews. The PI's will assess the impact of legal capacity on dispute initiation and outcomes using the new data on "non-cases" along with data on filed complaints developed by the PI's in previously published work.The proposed study innovates by highlighting the requirement for legal capacity in a properly-functioning "rule of law" regime. The literature on international law so far has ignored this fundamental point, despite the revealed importance of such capacity in domestic legal contexts. The project will also provide extraordinary new data on "non-cases," widely considered the "holy grail" of empirical analyses of international institutions. These data will allow scholars to definitively investigate selection biases that may exist in studies limited to formally filed complaints. Such potential bias remains the most important question mark for the rapidly growing body of work on trade disputes. Because the PI's have carefully refined the proposed study's concepts and operational measures in published work using parallel units of observation (formally filed disputes), and because the PI's have built up close contacts with WTO-related organizations and individuals, the project is feasible.The PI's will disseminate the resulting data through various channels, providing the first public data on "non-disputes" in addition to new variables concerning formal complaints. The findings will help broaden the participation of underrepresented groups in WTO lawsuits, shedding light on the efficacy of publicly-sponsored legal aid and training programs designed to help developing countries use the regime's rules more effectively. Finally, the project's findings will help scholars and diplomats alike assess the ramifications of debates in the current round of WTO trade talks (and in other, regional, trade arrangements) over the optimal design of the dispute settlement system.