Unfolding the Quarrels - An Assessment of the Structural Background behind WTO Disputes

International trade has soared in the last 30 years, and conseauently trade disputes have also been on the rise. The Dispute Settlement Body of the WTO serves as plattform in order to attenuate hurdles and misunderstandings. But what makes a country use the DSB? Both underlying structural variables and game theory related variables explain this. While the latter is held constant, this paper inquires in the influence played by structural variables such as GDP, population size, exports, etc, in order to determine why some countries tend to use the DSB and others don't. An index is then proposed to assess the procedural success of countries having participated in the DSB. Key words: WTO, DSB, international trade, procedural success, imports, exports.