Academic

Li on Law, Norms, and International Trade Dispute Resolution

By Lawrence Solum

Ji Li (Northwestern University and Yale Law School) has posted Law and Social Norms: An Empirical Study of the Control Mechanism in International Trade Dispute Resolution on SSRN.  Here is the abstract:

This paper explores the impact of domestic social norms on international trade dispute resolution. Applying the idea of a signaling game, I hypothesize that the level of litigiousness of a country exerts significant influence on how its government chooses to resolve disputes with another state, i.e. through settlement or adjudication. To be more specific, everything else equal, a nonlitigious country will more likely choose settlement than a litigious state because of the perceived negative signal attached to litigation. This is especially true when the responding party is also a nonlitigious state. If, however, the accused is a litigioius country, the complaining nonlitigious state is less concerned with the signaling aspect of litigation, thus more likely resorting to adjudication to resolve the dispute. I use both case studies and statistical regression to test the hypothesis. Findings from both types of evidence strongly support it.

Full post as published by Legal Theory Blog on August 14, 2008 (boomark / email).