Jurisdiction in Cross-Border Antitrust Disputes

Dispute Settlement in Trade

Overview

This secton covers the extent to which international rules and procedures can be and are used to solve difficult inter-firm and inter-governmental problems in international trade and investment.

Topics

This section provides an in depth examination of cases that have been litigated either at the GATT/WTO or under the NAFTA. The selection of cases will depend on part on recent events and the availability of suitable material, but could include such cases as the Canada-US dispute over salmon and herring export controls (disputed under both the GATT and the Canada-US FTA); the US-Japan dispute over import controls on agricultural products; the EU-Japan dispute over circumvention of antidumping duties through the establishment of so-called screwdriver assembly plants; and the EU-Canada dispute over the ‘appellation’ of scallops as Coquilles St Jacques. Using specific cases, the entry may consider both the rules involved in the dispute, i.e., the application of international law, and the con­cepts and procedures used to try to resolve the dispute.

Specially, it covers the following:

• Principles and procedures in the settlement of international disputes
• The role of dispute settlement in the enforcement of international trade law
• Evolution of dispute settlement procedures in international trade law
• The WTO dispute settlement procedures
• The NAFTA dispute settlement procedures
• Dispute settlement in international investment disputes
• Domestic procedures in the settlement of international trade and investment disputes

Further Reading

• Davey, William, Pine and Swine: Dispute Settlement under the Canada-US FTA (Ottawa: Centre for Trade Policy and Law, 1996)
• Robert E. Hudec, The Adjudication of International Trade Disputes (London: Trade Policy Research Centre, 1978)
• Robert E. Hudec, “The Legal Status of GATT in the Domestic Law of the United States,” in Meinhard Hilf, et. al., The European Communities and the GATT (Boston: Kluwer, 1986)
• John H. Jackson, The World Trading System: Law and Policy of International Economic Relations (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1989)
• Michael J. Trebilcock and Robert Howse, The Regulation of International Trade (New York: Routledge, 1995)
• Jon Johnson, The North American Free Trade Agreement: A Comprehensive Guide (Aurora, ON: Canada Law Book, 1994)
• John H. Barton and Bart S. Fisher, International Trade and Investment: Regulating International Business (Boston: Little Brown, 1986)
• Sornarajah, The International Law on Foreign Investment (Cambridge: Grotius, 1994)
• Frieder Roessler, “Diverging Domestic Policies and Multilateral Trade Integration,” in Jagdish Bhagwati and Robert E. Hudec, eds., Fair Trade and Harmonization, volume 2: Legal Analysis (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1996)
• Robert E. Hudec, Enforcing International Trade Law: The Evolution of the Modern GATT Legal System (Salem, New Hampshire: Butterworth, 1993)
• WTO, The WTO Dispute Settlement Procedures: A Collection of the Legal Texts (Geneva: WTO, 1995).