Revisiting the "compliance-vs.-rebalancing" debate in WTO scholarship: Towards a unified research agenda

This paper constitutes an attempt to reframe and eventually deflate the ongoing 'compliance-vs.-rebalancing' debate which has permeated WTO scholarship for the last 10 years. Our main criticism concerns the substance of the entire debate. We find that scholars on both sides of the compliance/rebalancing controversy put an unduly rigid emphasis on the subsequent issues of WTO enforcement and the interpretation of the wording of the dispute settlement understanding. They thereby neglected systemic issues of contracting, viz. the nature of contractual entitlements, the need for trade policy flexibility mechanisms and the optimal design of the appropriate remedies. We redefine and recalibrate the compliance/rebalancing controversy along the lines of the nature of the WTO contract. This results in to three key findings: First, none of the two schools of thought succeeds in giving an accurate picture of the WTO treaty. Second, the two perspectives actually portray two strikingly different concepts of the WTO contract, and therefore have been at cross-purposes from the very beginning. This implies a third finding: The two schools of thought essentially describe different facets of the same complex WTO contract. Hence, they have hardly been at loggerheads at all, and are actually complementing each other in important aspects. We lay out a unified research agenda that practitioners, economists, trade lawyers, and international relations scholars alike can accept. The agenda may contribute to reconciling the two opposing views and help WTO scholarship tackle the real systemic issues of the WTO Agreement

Rice Age: Comments on the Panel Report in Turkey - Measures Affecting the Importation of Rice

At face value, Turkey-Rice is not the most complex or important WTO dispute ever litigated. The facts of the case give strong reason to believe that Turkey's restrictions on rice imports from the United States were not GATT-consistent. Turkey's steadfast refusal to provide exonerating evidence in its defence and the Panel's drawing of appropriate inference were probably the most remarkable issues of the case. Nevertheless, Turkey-Rice raises at least one interesting legal and economic question: How ‘activist' are dispute panels today, and how interventionist should they be during the litigation process? We discuss the justification and role of activist panels and assess the consequences for parties' strategic behavior and incentive to provide accurate informatio

The Optimal Design of Trade Policy Flexibility in the WTO

This paper is a contribution to the literature on rational design of trade agreements. The World Trade Organization (WTO) is an incomplete contract among sovereign states. Incomplete contracts contain gaps. Ex post, contractual gaps may leave gains from trade unrealized; they may create 'regret' in signatories once unanticipated contingencies or sudden protectionist backlashes have occurred. Trade policy flexibility mechanisms, such as the 'safeguards clause' under Art. XIX GATT, are geared towards seizing ex post regret by allowing parties affected by a protectionist shock to partially and temporarily withdraw from previously made trade liberalization concessions - given that they compensate the victim(s) of such backtracking behavior. This paper examines the somewhat understudied issue of optimal trade policy flexibility design in the WTO: In particular, we analyze whether ex post escape should be organized by means of a unilateral opt-out clause (a 'liability rule' of escape), or a bilateral renegotiation provision (a 'property rule' of escape). Modeling the WTO as a fully non-contingent tariff liberalization contract with contingencies (or 'states of nature') asymmetrically revealed, we find that a liability rule backed by expectation remedies payable to the affected victim Pareto-dominates both a renegotiation clause, as well as any other remedy arrangement connected to a liability rule. Only the remedial design of liability-cum-expectation damages yields the desirable incentives to liberalize ex ante, and to default ex post and therewith is able to replicate the outcomes of the hypothetical contracting ideal of the complete contingent contract

Outcome reporting in randomised controlled trials and meta-analyses of appendicitis treatments in children: a systematic review

Background: Acute appendicitis is the most common surgical emergency in children. Despite this, there is no core outcome set (COS) described for randomised controlled trials (RCTs) in children with appendicitis and hence no consensus regarding outcome selection, definition and reporting. We aimed to identify outcomes currently reported in studies of paediatric appendicitis. / Methods: Using a defined, sensitive search strategy, we identified RCTs and systematic reviews (SRs) of treatment interventions in children with appendicitis. Included studies were all in English and investigated the effect of one or more treatment interventions in children with acute appendicitis or undergoing appendicectomy for presumed acute appendicitis. Studies were reviewed and data extracted by two reviewers. Primary (if defined) and all other outcomes were recorded and assigned to the core areas ‘Death’, ‘Pathophysiological Manifestations’, ‘Life Impact’, ‘Resource Use’ and ‘Adverse Events’, using OMERACT Filter 2.0. / Results: A total of 63 studies met the inclusion criteria reporting outcomes from 51 RCTs and nine SRs. Only 25 RCTs and four SRs defined a primary outcome. A total of 115 unique and different outcomes were identified. RCTs reported a median of nine outcomes each (range 1 to 14). The most frequently reported outcomes were wound infection (43 RCTs, nine SRs), intra-peritoneal abscess (41 RCTs, seven SRs) and length of stay (35 RCTs, six SRs) yet all three were reported in just 25 RCTs and five SRs. Common outcomes had multiple different definitions or were frequently not defined. Although outcomes were reported within all core areas, just one RCT and no SR reported outcomes for all core areas. Outcomes assigned to the ‘Death’ and ‘Life Impact’ core areas were reported least frequently (in six and 15 RCTs respectively). / Conclusions: There is a wide heterogeneity in the selection and definition of outcomes in paediatric appendicitis, and little overlap in outcomes used across studies. A paucity of studies report patient relevant outcomes within the ‘Life Impact’ core area. These factors preclude meaningful evidence synthesis, and pose challenges to designing prospective clinical trials and cohort studies. The development of a COS for paediatric appendicitis is warranted