Comparative Analysis of NAFTA's Chapter 20 and the WTO's Dispute Settlement Understanding
Transnational Dispute Management, Vol. 8, No. 3, pp. 1-25, September 2011
Queen Mary School of Law Legal Studies Research Paper No. 94/2011
27 Pages Posted: 8 Dec 2011
Date Written: December 8, 2011
Abstract
This article is a legal and policy analysis of two international trade disputes fora, namely the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and the World Trade Organization (WTO), for countries that have standing in both jurisdictions, i.e., the United Mexican States, the US, and Canada. Both fora are judicially compared from the perspective of the respondent and of the complainant, analyzing the advantages and disadvantages of each forum. The chosen time-frame of judicial analysis is between 1995 and 2001. The article concludes with two cases which may have been brought in either forum, Broomcorn and Canada – Patent Term, and recommends that, for the future, the Party concerned in international trade disputes would need to look at the factors compositely on a case-specific basis to determine whether a dispute should be brought under the WTO or the NAFTA.
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