The WTO's dispute settlement mechanism (DSM) is based on either bilateral bargaining or third-party rulings by a panel or the Appellate Body. When do countries utilize the multilateral procedure, and under what conditions do they opt for a bilateral agreement? Sijeong Lim's new paper titled “Why Not Bargain? The Domestic Politics of Utilizing the World Trade Organization’s Dispute Settlement Mechanism” explores how a respondent country’s domestic politics shape its incentives to utilize the multilateral procedure of the DSM. The authors suggest that the domestic political interests of respondent governments determine the use of the dispute settlement mechanism’s multilateral track. They argue that respondent governments choose the multilateral track to seek political cover for domestically unpopular concessions to a complainant. Such cover is required when (1) the dispute at stake has high public salience and (2) the respondent faces an upcoming election. Their hypotheses are tested using the WTO’s dispute cases from 1995 to 2017.
You can read it here: https://doi.org/10.1177/0032321720978340