Conflict analysis of the trade in services dispute

The conflict analysis methodology is employed to study formally the trade in services dispute arising among members of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) as well as other nations. In the paper, the trading conflict is modelled and analysed for the situation that existed in late September 1988 just before the December 1988 meeting of GATT held in Montreal, Canada. An expert on international trade is used to provide background information for developing the conflict model in terms of decision-makers, their available courses of action or options, and their preferences, as well as to interpret and comment upon the results of the analysis based on the conflict model. To allow the conflict analysis approach to be conveniently and efficiently applied to the GATT controversy, DecisionMaker: the Conflict Analysis Program is employed by two analysts for recording the conflict model, performing all the necessary calculations and providing useful output from the analysis stage. The results of the conflict analysis study furnish a better understanding of the conflict and closely predict what eventually took place after the analysis.