| Abstract: | The long‐running Canada‐US softwood lumber dispute provides a useful backdrop for comparison of the dispute settlement mechanisms of the Canada‐US Free Trade Agreement, the North American Free Trade Agreement, and the dispute settlement mechanisms of the World Trade Organisation because it is the only dispute to have been litigated in all three venues. By looking at a dispute in which the central arguments of the litigants have remained consistent while the venues for litigation have changed, this article aims to evaluate the utility of these mechanisms for resolving some of the world trading system's most difficult disputes and highlights several weaknesses within each that both hamper their effectiveness and suggest avenues for future change. |
