Last year, I mentioned a puzzling provision on "sovereignty" in the TPA bill introduced in the Senate. This year's Senate TPA Bill has the same provision, but I'm going to highlight a different aspect:
SEC. 8. SOVEREIGNTY.
...
(c) DISPUTE SETTLEMENT REPORTS.—Reports, including findings and recommendations, issued by dispute settlement panels convened pursuant to any trade agreement entered into under section 3(b) shall have no binding effect on the law of the United States, the Government of the United States, or the law or government of any State or locality of the United States.
This provision raises several questions for me.
One question is, does this provision mean anything? Presumably, any trade agreement negotiated pursuant to TPA will have enforceable dispute settlement provisions, under which US trading partners can impose trade sanctions if the US does not comply with adverse rulings. As a result, whether dispute settlement reports have a "binding effect" on US law, or on US federal, state, local governments, might not matter in practice. It may just mean you can't invoke these reports in domestic court proceedings as the basis of a claim, which we already know.
Another question is, why is the provision in there? What did the drafters think it would accomplish?
One last question is, what would the drafters think if our trading partners incorporated something similar into their domestic law?
Thanks to Ted Posner for the tip.
