The author stated in International Business Law & Its Environment that the decision of the Dispute Settlement Body ("DSB" or "Body") in the case at hand was based on a calculation of both the United States' and the European Communities' ("EC") political interests. For example, although the EC seemed to have lost every claim it raised against unilateral action permitted by the U.S.' 1974 Trade Act, EC Trade Commissioner Pascal Lamy stated that the decision was "a balanced outcome" and "a victory for the multilateral system" (International Business, p. 357). This reading of the decision as a political document is further supported by the "amorphous" legal analysis used to reach its conclusions.
First, the DSB denied the EC's claim that Section 304 of the Trade Act, which required the United States Trade Representative ("USTR") to determine "whether" another WTO Member has violated U.S. rights under the WTO, violated the Understanding on Rules and Procedures Governing the Settlement of Disputes ("DSU") of the WTO. Rather, the DSB, using a method it defined as implementing "the ordinary meaning & in the light of [the treaty's] object and purpose" (Report, 1999, VII-A.7.70(c), p. 95), reasoned that Section 304 should be read to imply the U.S.' intent to comply with WTO obligations. As such, the DSB concluded that the non-statutory elements of Section 304 negated the prima facie inconsistency of its statutory elements, and that by the Section, the U.S. government had intended that the USTR would not make unilateral determinations of noncompliance that violated the DSU (Report, 1999, VII-A.7.131, p.100).
Second, the DSB also concluded that Section 306 of the Trade Act was not inconsistent with the DSU. The EC had argued that the monitoring requirement of Section 306 also provided for unilateral U.S. action in violation of the DSU. As with Section 304, the U.S. argued that the legal definition of "determination" under this
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