WTO Dispute Settlement and the EU–US Mini Trade Wars: A Commentary on Fritz Breuss

Economic theory suggests that some of the trade remedies allowed by the WTO may lead away from liberal trade and impose costs on those that apply them. Breuss has provided evidence in the case of four EU-US mini-wars that the policy that created the trade conflict was not clearly in the economic interest of the offending country and that the sanctions imposed exacerbated rather than alleviated the problem. Breuss builds a case for compensation payments rather than trade sanctions for rule violations and for targeting of the recipients of those payments.