Overview

This work examines the growing interaction between private enterprises and public officials to challenge foreign trade barriers. Building on more than a hundred interviews with former and current trade officials and private attorneys in the United States and Europe, Gregory Shaffer calls attention to the ways in which well-organized private parties are using the World Trade Organization's legal system to advance their own commercial ambitions, and how public officials increasingly are dependent on their assistance. Shaffer assesses the historical, political, legal, economic and cultural factors that have affected the formation of these ad hoc public-private partnerships, as well as trends in the European Union toward US-style practice. He considers the implications of these public-private trade litigation networks for the effectiveness and equity of the WTO system and the stability of US-EU relations.

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Reviews

[A] fascinating exploration of how governments, in the exercise of their public functions, work with and are influenced by private sector actors... Shaffer's DEFENDING INTERESTS is a unique and superb work of scholarship. It contains a wealth of information based on original research about how the United States and the EC prosecute cases in the WTO dispute settlement system. --William J. Davey, University of Illinios College of Law, The American Journal of International Law, 1/1/2005 This public-private hybrid is the wave of the future not only for international economic law, but also for international criminal law and soon for international environmental law. Defending Interests is on the cutting edge of international law research --exploring and analyzing the costs, benefits, contradictions, and tensions in this new form of governance. --Anne-Marie Slaughter, Dean, Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs

Author Information

Gregory C. Shaffer is professor of law at the University of Wisconsin, where he is also director of the European Union Center, and co-director of the Center on World Affairs and the Global Economy.

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