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INTRODUCTION
At the conclusion of the Uruguay Round, the Contracting Parties of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) adopted the World Trade Organization Agreement (WTO Agreement). ' The WTO Agreement included the Dispute Settlement Understanding (DSU), which provided for the implementation of a formidable dispute resolution mechanism to be administered by the Dispute Settlement Body (DSB).2 Through this dispute resolution mechanism, the World Trade Organization (WTO) acquired "muscle," and thus became an attractive forum for human rights advocates seeking to enforce human rights law.
The WTO's "muscle" arises from several provisions in the DSU. Under the DSU, the DSB can recommend that a WTO member (Member) bring its measures into conformity with its WTO obligalions.3 In addition, the DSB's decisions are automatically adopted.4 Moreover, to enforce a decision, the DSB can authorize the wronged Member to suspend concessions, i.e., impose retaliatory tariffs, if the offending Member fails to bring the offending measures into compliance with its WTO obligations.5
The wronged Member thus wields a formidable economic weapon, and recent DSB judgments have authorized the suspension of concessions in sizeable amounts. For example, in US-Foreign Sales Corporations, the DSB authorized the European Union to impose retaliatory tariffs of $4.043 billion annually against imported U.S. goods unless the United States amended objectionable provisions in its tax laws.6 In the controversial case EC-Beef Hormones, the DSB authorized the United States to impose retaliatory tariffs of $116.8 million annually against imports from the European Union until certain European countries changed their regulations on beef imports.7
Retaliatory tariffs are extremely persuasive,8 not only because they often involve large monetary sums, but especially because they give a wronged Member a great deal of flexibility in targeting the offending Member's goods and/or services.9 This flexibility enables the wronged Member to cushion the impact on its own economy by exempting tariffs on the offending Member's exports if those exports are somehow linked to the wronged Member's domestic production. This flexibility also allows the wronged Member to maximize the impact on specific sectors of the offending Member's economy, often by targeting politically sensitive exports.'"
As a result of this remarkable enforcement power, the United Nations (UN), the NGO community, and many scholars argue for the linkage of human rights to international trade...