ABSTRACT

An opportunity to serve national trade interests via the WTO dispute-settlement system was perceived by many experts as one of the potential advantages of Russia’s WTO membership. Indeed, in dozens of cases when Russian exporters claimed that their interests were abused, the country had a limited set of tools to influence trade policy measures of its trading partners. The WTO membership gives Russia new opportunities, including the access to the dispute-settlement tools provided by the WTO law. After the accession, the country started to use these tools. At the same time, regardless rather long accession period, due to many reasons Russia did not manage to create a strong institutional framework for the WTO DS utilization. The chapter analyses key challenges Russian Federation faces while participating in the WTO dispute-settlement system as a complaining party. In addition, the study discusses the reasons why potential violations do not reach the litigation stage.

An ability to participate in trade disputes is not only an opportunity, but a challenge as well. In addition to rights, the Russian Federation made some commitments and got new obligations. The chapter is based upon the two-level game theory approach in analysing participation of Russia in the WTO dispute-settlement process both as a complainant and a respondent.