The politics of trade liberalization in the WTO: how latent and actual disputes can remove barriers to trade.

This project investigates whether and how the judicialization of the World Trade Organization (WTO) leads to more trade liberalization. To do so, I address two closely interrelated questions. (1) Do WTO member states that might be challenged in WTO dispute settlement take a protectionist or a liberalizing stance in multilateral negotiations? (2) Under which conditions does actual WTO litigation contribute to the removal of WTO-illegal barriers to trade? The first question addresses the effect of legal vulnerability on WTO member states' negotiation strategies, whereas the second investigates how issue characteristics and domestic decision making structures affect implementation. I plan to use a combination of quantitative and qualitative research methods to shed clear light on how the two leading world trading powers, the EU and the US, respond to legal vulnerability and actual litigation.

Keywords:WTO, TRADE LIBERALISATION, POLITICS

Disciplines:Other economics and business, Law, Citizenship, immigration and political inequality, International and comparative politics, Multilevel governance, National politics, Political behaviour, Political organisations and institutions, Political theory and methodology, Public administration, Other political science

Project type:Collaboration project