Last updated 10th July 2024: Online ordering is currently unavailable due to technical issues. We apologise for any delays responding to customers while we resolve this. For further updates please visit our website https://www.cambridge.org/news-and-insights/technical-incident
We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 21 September 2020
The ‘new NAFTA’ agreement between Canada, Mexico, and the United States maintained the system for binational panel judicial review of antidumping and countervailing duty determinations of domestic government agencies. In US–Mexico disputes, this hybrid system brings together Spanish and English-speaking lawyers from the civil and the common law to solve legal disputes applying domestic law. These panels raise issues regarding potential bicultural, bilingual, and bijural (mis)understandings in legal reasoning. Do differences in language, legal traditions, and legal cultures limit the effectiveness of inter-systemic dispute resolution? We analyze all of the decisions of NAFTA panels in US–Mexico disputes regarding Mexican antidumping and countervailing duty determinations and the profiles of the corresponding panelists. This case study tests whether one can actually comprehend the ‘other’. To what extent can a common law, English-speaking lawyer understand and apply Mexican law, expressed in Spanish and rooted in a distinct legal culture?
1 K. J. Pippin, ‘An Examination of the Developments in Chapter 19 Antidumping Decisions under the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA): The Implications and Suggestions for Reform for the Next Century Based on the Experience of NAFTA After the First Five Years’, 21 Michigan Journal of International Law (1999) 101.
2 D. McRae and J. Siwiec, ‘NAFTA Dispute Settlement: Success or Failure?’, in A. Oropeza García (ed.), América del Norte en el Siglo XXI (2010) 363, at 367; J. Miranda and J. C. Partida, ‘Mexico: Quasi-Judicial Review of Trade Remedy Measures by NAFTA Panels’, in M. Yilmaz (ed.), Domestic Judicial Review of Trade Remedies: Experiences of the Most Active WTO Members (Cambridge University Press, 2012) 55.
3 J. C. Thomas and S. López Ayllón, ‘NAFTA Dispute Settlement and Mexico: Interpreting Treaties and Reconciling Common and Civil Law Systems in a Free Trade Area’, Canadian Yearbook of International Law (1995) 75; D. A. Gantz, ‘Resolution of Trade Disputes under NAFTA's Chapter 19: The Lessons of Extending the Binational Panel Process to Mexico’, 29 Law and Policy in International Business (1998) 297; C. Villanueva and M. Serna, ‘Private Parties in the NAFTA Dispute Settlement Mechanisms: The Mexican Experience’, 77 Tulane Law Review (2003) 1017; D. A. Gantz, ‘Addressing Dispute Resolution Institutions in a NAFTA Renegotiation’ (2018), https://scholarship.rice.edu/bitstream/handle/1911/102738/mex-pub-nafta-040218.pdf?sequence=1.
4 J. Pauwelyn, ‘Adding Sweeteners to Softwood Lumber: The WTO–NAFTA “Spaghetti Bowl” is Cooking’, 9 Journal of International Economic Law (2006) 197.
5 On 1 January 2006, Article 51 of the Federal Act of Administrative Courts replaced the corresponding Article 238 of Código Fiscal as standard of review.
6 D. Ciuriak, NAFTA Chapter 19 Revisited: Red Line or Bargaining Chip? (2 September 2018), SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3243113 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3243113; S. Sinclair, Saving NAFTA Chapter 19, 2018, policyalternatives.ca; H. P. Diaz, Peeling NAFTA Layers: Twenty Years After, CIGI Papers No. 68, Centre for International Governance Innovation, 21 May 2015, www.cigionline.org/publications/peeling-nafta-layers-twenty-years-after.
7 USTR, Summary of Objectives for the NAFTA Renegotiation, 17 July 2017, https://ustr.gov/sites/default/files/files/Press/Releases/NAFTAObjectives.pdf (1 December 2017); R. Dattu, T. Schappert, and G. Sathananthan, The Trump Administration Takes Aim at Chapter 19 of NAFTA, 6 April 2017, www.osler.com/en/resources/cross-border/2017/international-trade-brief-trump-administration-ta (accessed 17 Novemer 2017).
8 R. G. Lipsey, D. Schwanen, and R. J. Wonnacott, The Nafta: Whats In, Whats Out, Whats Next (Toronto: C. D. Howe Institute, 1994); B. J. Condon and T. Sinha, Drawing Lines in Sand and Snow: Border Security and North American Economic Integration (Armonk, NY: M. E. Sharpe, 2003).
9 See Extraordinary Challenge Committee, United States–Canada Free Trade Agreement, Certain Softwood Lumber Products from Canada, USA-CDA-1994-1904-01ECC, 3 August 1994, Dissenting Opinion of Malcolm Wilkey, 90, and critique of Mexican participation in NAFTA Chapter 19, 69–70, www.nafta-sec-alena.org/Home/Dispute-Settlement/Decisions-and-Reports (1 October 2017).
10 J. Miranda, Whither NAFTA? (Part VII: Why Chapter Nineteen is not Worth the Three Amigos Becoming the Two Amigos), Regulating for Globalization, http://regulatingforglobalization.com/2018/09/13/whither-nafta-part-vii-chapter-nineteen-not-worth-three-amigos-becoming-two-amigos/.
11 Decision of the Panel, United States–Canada Free Trade Agreement, Certain Softwood Lumber Products from Canada (Countervailing Duty), USA-CDA-1992-1904-01 (6 May 1993).
12 NAFTA Secretariat, Decisions and Reports, www.nafta-sec-alena.org/Home/Dispute-Settlement/Decisions-and-Reports (13 May 2020).
13 See, R. Cotterrell, Law, Culture and Society: Legal Ideas in the Mirror of Social Theory (Routledge, 2006), 70.
14 NAFTA, Review of the Final Determination of the Antidumping Investigation on Imports of High Fructose Corn Syrup, 3 August 2001.
15 For example, the Canadian Federal Court of Appeal faces similar issues. R. Boivin, ‘Bijural, Bisystemic, Bilingual Courts: A View from Inside the Canadian Federal Court of Appeal’ (2019) (Seminar Paper on file at ITAM, Mexico City ). Another example is the Special Tribunal for Lebanon. See Sir David Baragwanath, ‘The Interpretative Challenges of International Adjudication Across the Common Law/Civil Law Divide’, 3 Cambridge Journal of International and Comparative Law (2014) 450.
16 Other studies analyze similar issues in different contexts. For an analysis of the role of sex in judging, see C. L. Boyd, L. Epstein, and A. D. Martin, ‘Untangling the Causal Effects of Sex on Judging’, 54 American Journal of Political Science (2010) 389. Regarding barriers stemming from different training backgrounds, see S. Machura, ‘Interaction between Lay Assessors and Professional Judges in German Mixed Courts’, 72 Revue Internationale du Droit Pénal (2001) 451.
17 B. J. Condon, ‘Captain America and the Tarnishing of the Crown: The Feud between the WTO Appellate Body and the USA’, 52 Journal of World Trade (2018) 535; J. Miranda and M. Sánchez Miranda, ‘How the WTO Appellate Body Drove Itself Into a Corner’ (8 May 2020), SSRN: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3596217.
18 Interview with Todd Wetmore, Vice-President of the ICC Court of Arbitration, 12 May 2020.
19 See, for example, C. Jolls and C. R. Sunstein, ‘The Law of Implicit Bias’, 94 California Law Review (2006), 969; J. Greene, ‘The Rat-a-gorical Imperative’, 167 Cognition (2017) 66; C. Winter, ‘The Value of Behavioral Economics for EU Judicial Decision-Making’, 21 German Law Journal (2020) 240. Also see D. Kahneman, Thinking, Fast and Slow (Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 2011).
20 Winter, supra note 19.
21 Chris Guthrie et al., ‘Inside the Judicial Mind’, 86 Cornell Law Review (2000) 777; Winter, supra note 19.
22 G. Gigerenzer, ‘How to Make Cognitive Illusions Disappear: Beyond “Heuristics and Biases”’, 2 European Review of Social Psychology (1991) 83.
23 R. Block and D. Harper, ‘Overconfidence in Estimation: Testing the Anchoring-and-Adjustment Hypothesis’, 49 Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes (1991) 188.
24 A. Tversky and D. Kahneman, Judgment under Uncertainty: Heuristics and Biases, 185 Science (1974) 1128. Winter, supra, note 19.
25 J. J. Rachlinski, ‘A Positive Psychological Theory of Judging in Hindsight’, 65 University of Chicago Law Review (1998) 571; R.F. Pohl and W. Hell, ‘No Reduction in Hindsight Bias after Complete Information and Repeated Testing’, 67 Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes (1996) 49.
26 D. Kahan, ‘The Polarizing Impact of Science Literacy and Numeracy on Perceived Climate Change Risks’, 2 Nature Climate Change (2012) 732.
27 Interview with Dr Gabriela Rodriguez, Professor of Public International Law and advisor to a Chapter 19 panel.
28 Interview with Jorge Miranda, 15 May 2020, panelist on two Chapter 19 panels and advisor to three Chapter 19 panels.
29 R. Michaels, ‘The Functional Method of Comparative Law’, in M. Reimann and R. Zimermann (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Comparative Law (Oxford University Press, 2008) 331, at 339.
30 K. Zweigert and H. Kötz, An Introduction to Comparative Law (3rd edn, Oxford University Press, 1998), at 36.
31 K. Zweigert, ‘Des solutions identiques par des voies différentes’, 18 Revue Internationale du Droit Comparé (1966) 5, at 6, 17.
32 J. Gordley, ‘Comparison, Law, and Culture: A Response to Pierre Legrand’, 65 American Journal of Comparative Law (2017) 133.
33 V. G. Curran, ‘Comparative Law and Language’, in M. Reimann and R. Zimermann (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Comparative Law (2008) 675.
34 V. G. Curran, ‘Cultural Immersion, Difference and Categories in US Comparative Law’, 46 American Journal of Comparative Law (1998) 43, at 9.
35 J. H. Merryman and R. Pérez-Perdomo, The Civil Law Tradition (3rd edn, Stanford University Press, 2007), at 2.
36 NAFTA Articles 1904.3 & 1911. However, according to Art. 1904.8, panels are only empowered to uphold or remand an agency decision, not to declare the nullity of the decision as domestic Mexican courts would, for example.
37 S. Glanert, De la traductibilité du Droit (2011), at 229.
38 Regarding the application of Article 33 of the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties in WTO disputes, see B. J. Condon, ‘Lost in Translation: Plurilingual Interpretation of WTO Law’, 1 Journal of International Dispute Settlement (2010) 191.
39 L. Boroditsky and A. Gaby, ‘Remembrances of Times East: Absolute Spatial Representations of Time in an Australian Aboriginal Community’, 21 Psychological Science (2010) 1635.
40 P. Legrand, ‘Comparative Legal Studies and the Matter of Authenticity’, 1 Journal of Comparative Law (2006) 365, at 377.
41 Appellate Body Report, European Communities – Measures Affecting Importation of Certain Poultry Products, WT/DS69/AB/R, 23 July 1998, para 133; Appellate Body Report, Chile – Price Band System and Safeguard Measures Relating to Certain Agricultural Products, WT/DS207/AB/R, 22 May 2007, para 173; Appellate Body Report, Thailand – Customs and Fiscal Measures on Cigarettes from the Philippines, WT/DS371/AB/R, 15 July 2011, para 147.
42 E. H. Tiller and F. B. Cross, ‘What is Legal Doctrine?’, 100 Northwestern University Law Review (2006) 517.
43 J. Dabin, Doctrina General del Estado (2003). Articles 38 and 59 of the International Court of Justice Statute, for instance, embody a kind of bijural ecumenical compromise between the civil and common law theories of sources. The articles accept the ‘teachings’ of ‘highly qualified publicists (la doctrine), and judicial decisions, but it does not incorporate judgments through the lens of common law stare decisis or precedent. The provisions also stress that both are ‘subsidiary’ means to determine the law, rather than binding legal sources. See, A. Pellet and D, Müller, ‘Article 38’, The Statute of the International Court of Justice: A Commentary (3rd edn), 819, A. Zimmermann et al. (eds.) (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2019).
44 NAFTA, Review of the Final Determination of the Antidumping Investigation on Imports of Bovine Beef and Eatable Offal Originating from the United States of America, 15 March 2004.
45 Ibid., at 10.
46 Ibid., at 11–16.
47 Later courtesy translations corrected this error. See for example, NAFTA, Review of the Final Determination of The Antidumping Investigation on Imports of Urea Originating in The United States of America and the Russian Federation, 29 January 2004.
48 NAFTA, Review of the Final Determination of the Antidumping Duties Imposed on Imports of Ethylene Glycol Monobutyl Ether from the United States of America, Independently of the Country of Origin, 26 November 2015.
49 Full Court (Mexico), Thesis No. 166990, P. /J. 64/2009, XXX, 1461, July 2009.
50 See, e.g. Full Court (Mexico), Thesis No. 177048, P./J. 135/2005, XXII, p. 2062, October 2005.
51 NAFTA, Review of the Final Determination of the Antidumping Investigation of Carbon Steel Tube Imports with Straight Longitudinal Seams, 13 March 2008.
52 Ibid., at 55.
53 J. H. Merryman, ‘On the Convergence (and Divergence) of the Civil Law and the Common Law’, 17 Stanford Journal of International Law (1981) 357, 365.
54 See, A. Watson, Legal Transplants (Scottish Academic Press, 1974).
55 Merryman, supra, note 53, 369.
56 L. M. Friedman, ‘Is There a Modern Legal Culture’, 7 Ratio Juris 2 (1994) 117. We thank one anonymous referee from prompting this clarification.
57 P. Legrand, ‘The Impossibility of “Legal Transplants”', 4 Maastricht Journal of European and Comparative Law (1997) 111; J. Miller, ‘A Typology of Legal Transplants: Using Sociology, Legal History and Argentine Examples to Explain the Transplant Process’, 51 American Journal of Comparative Law (2003) 839.
58 CUSFTA, Certain Softwood Lumber Products from Canada, Dissenting Opinion of Malcolm Wilkey, 3 August 1994, at 90, 69–70.
59 Ibid., at 47.
60 Ibid., at 64–66.
61 Ibid., at 68–70.
62 Ibid., at 70.
63 This is an adaptation of Ostry's reference to ‘systems frictions’. See S. Ostry, Governments and Corporations in a Shrinking World (Council on Foreign Relations, 1990).
64 Carbon Steel, supra note 51 (Tursi, Dissenting), at 1.
65 Ibid.
66 Ibid., at 4, 6, 18.
67 We thank Eugenio Velasco for suggesting this clarification.
68 NAFTA, Review of the Final Determination of Antidumping Duties Imposed on Imports of Chicken Legs and Thighs from the United States of America, Independently of the Country of Origin, 5 April 2017, at 9.
69 Ibid.
70 NAFTA, Review of the Preliminary Resolution by Which the Antidumping Investigation (Final Resolution) Regarding the Importation of Pork Legs, Merchandise Classified under Tariff Schedules of the Law of General Taxes of Import and Export, Originating in the United States of America, Irrespective of the Country of Shipment, Independently of the Country of Origin, 5 December 1998; Chicken Legs, supra note 68; Urea, supra note 47, para 4.
71 Urea, supra note 47, para 4.
72 G. Samuel, ‘Le Droit Subjectif and English Law’, 46 Cambridge Law Journal (1987) 264.
73 Cruz Parcero, ‘El concepto de interés legítimo y su relación con los derechos humanos observaciones críticas a Ulises Schmill y Carlos de Silva’, 39 Isonomía (2013) 185.
74 E. T. Lee and J. M. Ellis, ‘The Standing Doctrine's Dirty Little Secret’, 107 NULR (2012)169, at 176; Linda R. S. v. Richard D., 410 US 614 (1973); Warth v. Seldin, 422 US 490 (1975); City of Los Angeles v. Lyons, 461 US 95 (1983), Allen v. Wright, 468 US 737 (1984), Bennett v. Spear (95-813), 520 US 154 (1997).
75 J. M. Magallón Ibarra, Los sonidos y el silencio de la jurisprudencia mexicana (2004), at 105, 295–300.
76 Serna de la Garza, ‘The Concept of Jurisprudencia in Mexican Law’, 2 Mexican Law Review (2009) 131.
77 On ‘tesis’, see C. Gonzalez, ‘From Jurisprudence Constante to Stare Decisis: The Migration of The Doctrine of Precedent to Civil Law Constitutionalism’, 7 Transnational Legal Theory (2016) 257, at 274–276.
78 Acuerdo Número 20/2013 Relativo a las reglas para la elaboración, envío y publicación de las tesis que emitan los Órganos del poder judicial de la federación [Regulation 20/2013 On the Rules for the drafting, remittance and publication of thesis issued by bodies of the Federal Judiciary ], 12 December 2013 DOF, Art. 2 A. (Mexico).
79 Ibid., Art. 4 C.
80 Urea, supra note 47, paras. 26–27.
81 A. Mason, ‘The Use and Abuse of Precedent’, 4 Australian Bar Review (1988) 93.
82 F. Schauer, Thinking Like a Lawyer (Harvard University Press, 2009), at 36–60.
83 A. L. Goodhart, ‘The Ratio Decidendi of a Case’, 22 Modern Law Review (1959) 117.
84 First Chamber Specialized on International Trade, 64/16-EC1-01-2, Yazmín Alejandra González Arellanes, 1 March 2017.
85 Bovine Beef, supra note 44.
86 Chicken Legs, supra note 68.
87 Ibid., at 17, 23, 50, 74, 81, and 112.
88 See, T. Lundmark and H. Waller, ‘Using Statutes and Cases in Common and Civil Law’, 7 Transnational Legal Theory (2016) 430.
89 NAFTA, Review of Antidumping Investigation of the Government of Mexico into Imports of Flat Coated Steel Products from the United States, 27 September 1996; High Fructose Corn Syrup, supra note 14.
90 High Fructose Corn Syrup, supra note 14, paras. 261–264; Flat Coated Steel Products, supra note 89, paras. 23, 44–48.
91 Interview with Todd Wetmore, Vice-President of the ICC Court of Arbitration, 12 May 2020. Regarding different approaches in common law and civil law courts, see M. Cohen, ‘Ex Ante versus ex post Deliberations: Two Models of Judicial Deliberations in Courts of Last Resort’, 62 American Journal of Comparative Law (2014) 951.
92 Interview with Gabriela Rodriguez, 14 May 2020, Professor of Public International Law and advisor to a Chapter 19 panel.
93 Interview with Jorge Miranda, 15 May 2020, panelist on two Chapter 19 panels and advisor to three Chapter 19 panels.
94 Indeed, panelists have questioned the nature of Chapter 19 panels, regarding whether they are tribunals or arbitral panels, and whether they are to apply international law or exclusively domestic law. We note that Chapter 19 panels have elements of both but are clearly distinct from the type of arbitration panels used in international commercial arbitration, for example, even though both take the place of domestic courts in the resolution of disputes. Carbon Steel, supra note 51 (Tursi, Dissenting), at 4, 6, 18.
95 Ether, supra note 48.
96 H. Dedek, ‘From Norms to Facts: The Realization of Rights in Common and Civil Private Law’, 56 McGill Law Journal (2010) 1, at 5.
97 Ether, supra note 48, at 13.
98 Ibid., 59
99 Ibid., 50.
100 M. Lasser, Judicial Deliberations: A comparative Analysis of Judicial Transparency and Legitimacy (Oxford University Press, 2009).
102 We classify the J.D. as an undergraduate law degree, not a postgraduate degree.
104 H. H. A. Cooper and D. B. Furnish, ‘Latin America: A Challenge to the Common Lawyer’, 21 Journal of Legal Education (1969) 435.
105 D. B. Furnish, Mexican Law: Readings & Materials in Comparative Law (2004), https://isearch.asu.edu/profile/27299/cv, p. 3.
107 The Ohtli is the highest honor bestowed by the Mexican government on the Mexican and Latino community outside of Mexico. www.cafc.uscourts.gov/judges/jimmie-v-reyna-circuit-judge https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/j.1540-5907.2010.00437.x; https://www.williamsmullen.com/news/jimmie-v-reyna-receives-highest-recognition-government-mexico; https://www.gob.mx/ime/acciones-y-programas/reconocimiento-ohtli-instituto-de-los-mexicanos-en-el-exterior.
111 B. J. Condon, ‘The Concordance of Multilingual Legal Texts at the WTO’, 33 Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development (2012) 525.
112 Ibid.
113 Winter, supra, note 19.
114 For example, McGill University in Canada has had a double degree program for decades. More recently, ITAM in Mexico and the University of Texas at Austin have created a double degree program.
