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This paper examines how the World Trade Organization (WTO) affects the trade policies of signatories. The paper concentrates on one of the ‘Big Four’ members of the WTO ? the European Union (EU). Specifically, we examine the impact of WTO regulations on EU antidumping (AD) regulation and consequently, on the choices and actions of EU trade policy makers and on the strategies of firms engaged in AD actions. As the dramatic anti-globalization riots in Seattle, Gothenburg, Genoa and Washington show, the WTO has become a focus for protests about the nature of ‘governance’ in the international economy. There is concern about the degree to which WTO agreements impinge on national sovereignty by proscribing certain types of government regulation. Recognition of this risk can be found in the truncated nature of most-favoured-nation (MFN) treatment under the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS). MFN is a cornerstone of the multilateral system: in its original GATT formulation, it proscribes discrimination among trading partners. However, the GATS MFN clause is much more conditional: states offer schedules of their liberalising measures and the degree of MFN treatment they are prepared to offer. ‘Governments wanted the option of adopting a more gradual and conditioned approach to opening up their markets, by making national treatment something to be granted, denied or qualified, depending on the sector and signatory concerned’ (Low and Mattoo, 1998, p. 4). Relatively little work has been done on whether goods trade regulation under GATT constrains states in similar ways, though some states, such as Canada, have suggested that GATT rules can influence national trade policymaking (DFAIT, 2002). Some current international business and international political economy literature expresses reservations about the WTO as a supranational organization (Rugman and Verbeke 1998; Rugman 2000), but we currently face a dearth of empirical work to assess the precise reach of WTO regulation. Moreover, to the extent that this question is addressed, the literature looks at the developing states and frames the issue as one of cost, rather than policymaking constraints (Hoekman, 2002). One way to assess the real impact of the WTO is to look at its influence on a powerful member of the international trading system ? and to look at that impact in goods trade. This would provide the stiffest test for those seeking to demonstrate the impact of the WTO. That is the purpose of this paper. We aim to interrogate the WTO and European Commission Trade Directorate data sets on AD negotiations (annual reports are produced by both organisations) with the aim of obtaining first, an absolute number of AD investigations; second, a breakdown by industrial sector; and third, evidence of the change over time in the number and target of AD action. In addition, we will undertake a set of interviews with key EU and WTO officials to substantiate and further develop our initial findings. In pursuing this methodology we are looking for the following: first, changes in industry profile for AD action; and second, a European Commission change of approach in the selection of trade instruments. On the first point, we are interested in assessing the changing industry profile of AD action to see if it is associated with changing EU trade strategy and to assess the implications for the competitive environment and industry dynamics. On the second point, a firm or industry association petitions the EU for action in response to perceived predatory or anticompetitive behaviour by competitors. The EU first takes the decision whether to act or not. If action is chosen, the Commission then selects the policy instrument or method for action. Our question is: ‘in recent years, have these options been constrained in any way by WTO regulation?’ Put another way, do we notice any change, pre and post-WTO, in the way in which the EU AD regime operates? [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: While most research on global governance has been motivated by questions of immediate policy-relevance, this paper attempts to address the theoretically more fundamental issue of whether global governance is about to acquire a degree of legitimacy, and thus a legal quality, that used to be restricted to the level of the nation-state. Having introduced legitimacy as a social fact which constitutes state agency in international politics, I discuss the implications of international legitimacy for IR theory and sketch the range of its application as an analytical concept by systematically comparing how problems of legitimacy are framed in the context of institutions as different as the ICC, the WTO, and international commercial arbitration. Finally, I propose a tentative model of how legitimacy might be produced by creative action. Understanding these processes of political community formation might help to understand the changing significance of international law that in part produces these challenges. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Major divisions emerged amongst the NATO allies over a war with Iraq that go to the very heart of where NATO is heading and what role NATO will have in the future. This paper examines the various faultlines in turn and assesses how they will impact upon NATO’s evolution post-Prague. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper I argue that the World Trade Organization (WTO) plays an important role in international affairs because international trade rules, and the shadow of WTO dispute resolution, compel governments to adhere to international legal rules for imposing trade protection. As a result, many illegal uses of trade protection are deterred, and many potential trade disputes are never witnessed. The WTO contains clearly delineated provisions under which a government may impose temporary safeguard protection upon a request from a domestic industry that claims it is being harmed by unfairly traded imports. Existing work suggests that governments will be guided largely by domestic political and foreign policy considerations when determining which industries should receive protection, regardless of whether the legal rules for imposing protection are met. However, I argue that governments almost always follow WTO law when deciding which cases should receive protection, even when political incentives dictate otherwise. The reasons for this, I argue, are twofold. First, WTO rules for imposing safeguard trade protection mandate that decisions to impose such protection be made by technocrats, who are insulated from political pressures. Second, the prospect of having a trade protection decision challenged before the WTO dispute resolution mechanism serves to further ensure that the legal criteria for imposing protection are met. I test these hypotheses using a dataset consisting of over 4,600 instances between 1979-2001 in which GATT and WTO members considered the use of antidumping and countervailing duty trade protection. I employ a series of logit models and find that legal criteria, as opposed to political criteria, predict which petitions for protection are likely to be granted. Furthermore, I find that governments are particularly likely to adhere to such rules for imposing protection when they know their decision could be challenged before the WTO dispute resolution mechanism and when the legal merits of the case are weak. This indirect or shadow effect of WTO law on government decisions to impose protection has been missed in numerous other studies of trade disputes and trade protection, and highlights a particular way in which international law and international organizations might exert a clear and independent effect on state behavior. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This essay contends that semiperipheral societies were the main seedbeds of social evolutionary change since the emergence of chiefdoms. A definition of core/periphery hierarchies is provided. Semiperipheral marcher chiefdoms, marcher states, and capi ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A discussion of the book Prediction: Science, Markets, and Politics, which the ISA panel presenters currently are editing, to be published by University of Michigan Press. The book is based on presentations, by chapter contributors, to an international conference, held September 2005 at the University of Michigan, for the purpose of exploring societal, biological, and physical aspects of global modeling and forecasting. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]