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6 - Adjudication vs “Frontier Justice” in International Economic Law Disputes

The Trump Administration’s Push for Unilateralism in Trade Enforcement

from Part I - Current Challenges in International Trade Dispute Settlement

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 August 2021

By
Simon Lester  and
Huan Zhu
Edited by
Manfred Elsig ,
Rodrigo Polanco  and
Peter van den Bossche
Manfred Elsig
Affiliation:
Universität Bern, Switzerland
Rodrigo Polanco
Affiliation:
Universität Bern, Switzerland
Peter van den Bossche
Affiliation:
Universität Bern, Switzerland
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Summary

In most domestic legal systems, the domestic judiciary has great power over the actors (individuals, business, government entities, and so on) it oversees. By contrast, the international judiciary has traditionally had a more limited role, in part because of the central role of states in the governance of the international legal system (Cheng 1983). States maintain control over their participation in international legal disputes, over the power of the international judiciary to interpret and apply the law, and over the enforcement of international legal decisions. In recent years, however, the role of supranational entities that are hierarchically above states has grown, as international courts and tribunals with a moderate degree of authority have proliferated. While the fears of lost sovereignty expressed by many nationalists are greatly exaggerated, it is true that there has been a slight shift of authority from the national to the supranational through the establishment, by states themselves, of various international dispute settlement bodies.

Type
Chapter
Information
International Economic Dispute Settlement
Demise or Transformation?
 , pp. 138 - 161
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2021

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