Document Type

Working Paper

Publication Date

2020

Abstract

“The U.S. won a $7.5 Billion award from the World Trade Organization against the European Union, who has for many years treated the USA very badly on Trade due to Tariffs, Trade Barriers, and more. This case going on for years, a nice victory”, tweeted President Trump’s on October 3, 2019. The United States (US) won not only the highest amount of retaliation ever adjudicated in the history of the WTO but also an ongoing right to retaliate on an annual basis until such time as the EU had complied by either removing the subsidies it granted Airbus or somehow neutralizing their adverse effects on Boeing. In light of the facts of the case, this ruling has two major shortcomings. First, in sharp contrast with the statutory language and practice until now, the Arbitrator effectively introduced a permanent liability rule into the WTO system through the backdoor. Second, given the way the decision and the associated award is written, it is simply impossible for the EU to comply because (a) the contested subsidies are no longer in existence and (b) no guidance has been provided on how the EU might go about removing their effects if it sought to achieve compliance. Thus, in all likelihood, the EU is saddled with a ruling that obligates it to cough up an annual sum of $7.5 billion USD for an indefinite time period.

Disciplines

Dispute Resolution and Arbitration | International Law | International Trade Law | Law | Securities Law | Transnational Law

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Comments

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 (CC-BY 4.0) International license.

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