Chile's Participation in the Dispute Settlement System: Impact on Capacity Building
Posted: 15 Jul 2008 Last revised: 25 Jul 2008
Date Written: July 14, 2008
Abstract
Chile's participation in the WTO DSU is not commensurate to its participation in world trade and actually puts the country around the top ten users of the mechanism. While commercial considerations have been the main factor behind most of the complaints, generally systemic interests have been the reason for its participation as third party. From the twenty one disputes in which Chile reserved its rights as third party, only four had a direct or immediate impact on Chilean exports. Fourteen of them didn't affected current trade at all and three refer to disputes the outcome of which could have some positive impacts in the respective market or even at a global level hence for Chilean goods. Chile's reliance on foreign trade requires predictable and secure market conditions for its goods and services and hence the importance it assigns to a rules-based multilateral trading system and that WTO members abide to those rules, can explain most of those numbers. One example is antidumping measures. A legitimate tool only if applied in a correct manner that guarantees due process, fairness and objective assessment of the facts. Another is the disciplines in subsidies, especially in the agriculture sector that is an important piece of Chile's export matrix. The same reason applies to SPS measures and the special attention placed on the way the disciplines of the respective agreement are being respected by the country's trade partners.
Keywords: WTO, Dispute settlement, Chile, World trade, Foreign trade, Trade partners, Secure markets, Anti-dumping
JEL Classification: F02, F10, F13, F14, F15
Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation