Busch, Reinhardt, & Shaffer: Does Legal Capacity Matter? Explaining Patterns of Protectionism in the Shadow of WTO Litigation

Marc L. Busch (Georgetown Univ. - School of Foreign Service), Eric Reinhardt (Emory Univ. - Political Science), & Gregory Shaffer (Loyola Univ. of Chicago - Law) has posted Does Legal Capacity Matter? Explaining Patterns of Protectionism in the Shadow of WTO Litigation. Here's the abstract:

Does legal capacity matter in the World Trade Organization (WTO)? The conventional wisdom is that the right perseveres over might under the WTO's more legalistic dispute settlement system. Yet, others stress that members can only take advantage of the rule of law if they have the resources to protect their rights through litigation. Despite all the interest in this topic, there is virtually no empirical evidence about how legal capacity affects patterns of litigation and import protection. Using an original survey of WTO delegations, we construct a novel index of legal capacity, and include this in a study of 1321 antidumping (AD) investigations between 1995 and 2005 by 17 WTO Members against firms located in 33 countries. We hypothesize that Members with more legal capacity are more likely to challenge AD suits brought against them at the WTO, and less likely to be named in AD petitions in the first place. The results strongly bear out our expectations; legal capacity matters.