A Sword and a Shield: South Korea's Strategic Use of World Trade Organization Litigation

The World Trade Organization (WTO) has since its inception in 1995 produced a cohort of 108 “fully litigated” trade cases. Quantitative and qualitative analysis of this cohort of cases reveal that South Korea ranks first among all Asia Pacific nations in appearances as complainant. Similarly, Korea ranks first among the 13 most litigious WTO members in the relative frequency with which it converts WTO Consultation Requests to formal litigation. Furthermore, its litigation history reflects a strategy to employ the formal WTO litigation venue in the service of two key exports: steel and semiconductors. Through this strategy, Korea has challenged U.S. safeguard measures on steel and defended its own putative subsidization of semiconductor manufacturers from countervailing duties imposed by the United States, European Union, and Japan.