International Trade as a New Forum for Conflict and Negotiation


The continuous growth of globalization through multilateral economic interaction calls on trade relations among countries to establish harmonious relationships.  Inevitably because individual governments dispose themselves their unique character apart from the others reflective in respective legislation structures and at most times salient in trade and economic policy aspects, despite a global wide established multilateral body like the World Trading Organization (WTO) exists, resolving trade disputes through a multilateral adjudication process is a dichotomy causing disadvantage for some nations while others prefer to do so for uniformity purposes. The existence of such a dichotomy brings forth the schism divided into two spheres for bilateralism that governs trade have constituted among countries a bipolar nature rather than as a dispute annihilating mechanism. The constant change process occurring in various national legislation frameworks, foreign policy and trade laws incites this new phenomenon to cause separation among nations with different goals for their national welfare,  resulting to thrive international conflicts and at times, armed conflict, among nations with scarce resources. The more escalating issue of illegal trade activity assembles vindication among nations who, despite WTO adjudication, misses compliance accountability paving way to unfair trade practices reference to other states.


This study evaluates a conflict resolution strategy followed by a negotiation scheme to tailor fit set by any given state, as this was patterned after the US case whether when and under what circumstances should it avail a WTO adjudication approach or take unilateral or bilateral action through negotiation schemes with the trade partner in dispute. This issue sheds light whether implementing this strategy sets a worthy causal factor since the United States’ major trade partners are those with whom are having cases filed against the United States. US exports are not legally protected under the WTO umbrella and risks largely trade relations with major trading partners on imports by which US partners would deny in return continuity of trading relations with the United States. However the United States is concerned in a manner in which the export portion of trade would short fall of compliance from its partners with them. For example, antidumping issues in Japan would not protect the United States in terms of imposing antidumping duties and would end to no resolve within these specific matters in the future causing the United States economic impairment. In addition, similar issues end without proper jurisprudential resolution when matters fall under the nonprotection of US or international intellectual property policies, compliance on technical standards and those involving nontariff barriers as the root cause of dispute whether it is subject to trade protective mechanisms employing a non-vindictive nature that holds them liable in the actual for violation. Countries as trading partners of the United States become discrete and insidious amid the cases potential for WTO adjudication reflecting nontrade barriers, investment policies, regulations that affect specific sector and industry trade segments not being questioned for credibility purposes. Worse, the UNCTAD as the central regulatory body that should assure  proper enforcement does in international trade law does not include in their statistics national and international intellectual property laws governing that miss a large part of these nontariff barrier issues (Davis, 2008,pp.16-17).Out from this circumstances the United States would be on the advantage to leverage a negotiation without WTO adjudication premised upon the codification deficiency of the WTO system and the fact codification was not feasible in these cases, evaluating first its legal status by selecting and evaluating the legal disputes or trade barriers involved of enough legal strength. The trade impact analysis on the part of the United States under various legal approaches should be given priority when evaluating as well the legal advantages and disadvantages for the trade barrier itself involved in the case and its possibility to outweigh US alternatives strategized for action. On the contrary, however, US imports protection may  have a variable to represent that yields a strong legal case using a straightforward application using existing WTO rules serving as a strategy to win over a trade barrier. Moreover a larger jurisprudence under GATT and WTO allot governments to form such strong cases (Davis, 2008, p.23). Likewise, the likelihood for a downturn under the WTO system could base from the premise it is often in most cases a WTO complaint initiation means a failure by earlier requests to remove the barrier would likely make the decision unsuccessful for the complainant as delays may occur in the light that counter parting with a policy response to refute the dispute on hand by the trade partner will bring into disadvantage.


Specific negotiation mechanisms are almost impossible to determine at this stage and appropriate to disclose in final terms customized to this case. However the following tenets can serve as building blocks to strategize a base position for strategic negotiation given the risk of bias is at stake. Two forms of bias may occur. Taking into account that the US Trade Representative may be overly optimistic about outcomes on disputes using WTO adjudication that hitting a negotiation balance is likely possible. Expressing a positive outlook would undermine the strategic position the United States stands to inform foreign governments that an issue prevails would bring the United States to a disadvantage. Or, the US Trade Representative (USTR) which has not hesitated to criticize poor compliance among nonconforming members indicates that it is not taking an affirmative stance towards WTO adjudication. Without weighing carefully the pros and cons may befall a strategic negotiation of the United States to win in the negotiation process. This is where negotiation in international trade may involve careful assessments leading to implement a hybrid set of alternatives bringing into either a win to win situation or imbalance enhancing the conflict stance within a wide range of stakeholders as one side of the balance leads to an advantage while the other end to disadvantage. This disposition usually represents a group implementing negotiation strategies among who represent various commercial, policy, economic, political, legal and institutional interests affected by trade or investment policy solutions.  As the bottom-line each of these groups targets to influence a policy outcome for their respective interests (Monning and Feteketuky, 2002).


 



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