Replication Data for: How Do Prior Rulings Affect Future Disputes?

International dispute systems are often designed so that dispute body rulings do not set precedent. Yet governments have incentives to learn from prior decisions. Past rulings convey important information about how the law is applied. This is especially true in the World Trade Organization (WTO), where disputes frequently occur between the same members and over the same issues. I argue that case law increases the likelihood of early settlement. This helps explain why fifty percent of WTO cases end prior to a formal ruling. I use new data on the direction of ruling on each legal claim made in the first 450 WTO disputes. The results show that litigants are significantly more likely to settle early given the presence of previous legal decisions.

国际争端机制的设计往往不赋予争端机构裁决以先例约束力。然而各国政府仍存在从既往裁决中学习的动机。过往裁决会传递关于法律适用方式的重要信息，这一点在世界贸易组织（World Trade Organization，WTO）体系中尤为突出——该组织内成员国间的争端频发，且争端议题多有重合。本文主张，判例法会提升争端早期和解的可能性，这也有助于解释为何50%的WTO争端案件会在正式裁决作出前达成和解。本文使用了覆盖前450起WTO争端案件中每项法律主张的裁决倾向新数据集，分析结果显示，若存在既往法律裁决，争端当事方达成早期和解的概率将显著提升。