The dispute resolution system in international trade is really unique to international relations, because there is no other area that I'm aware of in the conduct of international relations where countries have attempted and been willing to enter into binding commitments and some form of binding resolution of those commitments. And they will respect their international obligations and provide enforcement mechanisms if they don't.
We're relatively new--I mean internationally, not just Canada--in this game, because it was only with the creation of the WTO in a multilateral sense and enforceable panel decisions, and with the FTA-NAFTA with the United States and then Mexico, that we got into this game of enforceable dispute settlement systems.
I think what we've found--and I can speak more from the multilateral context of the WTO--is that the system of dispute hearing and adjudication of trade obligations has worked reasonably well; that is, the panel system arriving at decisions in panels, getting the panel decisions accepted by the parties, which in the old GATT never happened because there had to be consensus on the adoption of a panel decision and so the losing party would never agree to accept such a decision. Under the new system, the panel decision will stand.
Then you come to the area of enforceability, and that's where I think we're still in a testing ground, because as you say, and we all know, the issue is that we can win cases, but can we actually get our trading partner to change its behaviour as a result of having taken and won that case? That is, we have recognition by all the parties, including the losing party, that it's not respecting its obligations, but then what do we do? How do we get it to accept its obligations?
The WTO provides that either they will change their practice, they will offer compensation, or if we are the winning party we can extract retaliation. Retaliation in trade cases is a losing game, because trade is meant to be win-win. It's meant to be gain, to increase trade. To retaliate and decrease trade doesn't really help anyone, and we found that in the Brazilian aircraft case on both sides.
So there is obviously still work and conceptual work to be done, but it has moved forward.