ABSTRACT
This chapter describes both thematic and chronological, with the goal of tracing out and analysing the increasing use of World Trade Organisation (WTO) rules by the Japanese government. It sets out Japan’s historical relationship with the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade/WTO system, and shows how there has been a marked shift in both the attitudes and perceptions regarding the utility of a rule-based approach. The chapter analyses some of the more prominent legal cases involving Japan, with a view to exposing how legal rules affect and constrain trade relations. It focuses on the period after the birth of the WTO in 1995 when the contours of the strategy, as well as its costs and advantages, became clearer. The Japanese government has recently started demonstrating how the WTO rules can also be used as a sword to challenge or thwart Japan’s trade partners directly – a confrontational strategy that Japan has avoided for most of the postwar period.
