WTO Judicial Politics and EU Trade Policy: Business Associations as Vessels of Special Interest?

Abstract

This article:

Contributes to the literature on interest groups showing how the interplay of domestic and international institutional structures critically affects the character of lobbying.

Contributes to a better understanding of EU trade politics, highlighting how such processes are systematically affected by changes in global governance structures.

Traces empirically how important institutional innovations were introduced in EU trade policy making in order to adapt to reform of the WTO dispute settlement mechanism.

Offers systematic empirical evidence about the evolution of the character of dispute settlement cases initiated by the EU in the WTO.

Shows empirically how business associations traditionally active in EU trade policy making increasingly act as ‘vessels’ of narrow and specialized interests.

This article focuses on the effects of the WTO’s quasi-judicial system of dispute resolution on the politics of trade policy making in the European Union (EU). We argue that this institutional innovation had a systematic transformative effect on EU trade politics, creating pressures for institutional adaptation and changing the character of organized trade policy lobbying. On the one hand, the new environment of the WTO created pressures for the EU to implement significant institutional innovations to ease access for private parties and generate an influx of information to strengthen offensive market access actions. On the other hand, this reform directly affected firms’ incentives to mobilize politically, creating incentives for specialized lobbying. The empirical analysis shows how these two processes ultimately led to a re-organization of trade policy lobbying in the EU and compelled European business associations to become increasingly receptive to the demands of special interests.