Examining external influences on WTO dispute settlement: the defensive power of regional trade agreements

The power-based vs. rule-based nature of the WTO dispute settlement process is investigated in this analysis. A probit regression is used to determine how variables representing power-based arguments, relative GDP advantages and regional trade agreement membership, and variables representing rule-based argument, the rulings issued from the dispute process, affect the dependent variable, the level of concessions that the complainant state in the dispute is able to induce from the respondent state. The results show that regional trade agreement membership gives respondents a statistically significant defensive advantage. Therefore, the nature of the WTO dispute settlement process is deemed to remain power-based.