Bangladesh needs to focus on WTO and should refer trade disputes before international forums where experts and observers from other countries get involved tilting the balance towards a more level playing field. Though the country took resort to WTO in 2004 for compelling India to withdraw anti-dumping duties on batteries, nonetheless she always seems to shy away from litigating trade issues before international forums.
Two possible factors could possibly prevent Bangladesh from not preferring multilateralism over bilateral negotiation. First, the culture on non-litigiousness with the mindset that litigation causes irreparable harm to the bilateral relationship and it is a kind of unfriendly behavior and damaging of foreign relationship. Second, a political power theory postulates that it is the external considerations of political powers that affect a country's decision on whether or not to take a dispute to a particular forum. Proponents suggest that a less powerful counterpart would be slow in bringing a dispute against more powerful counterpart for the fear that the defendant may consider such a move to be hostile, attracting retaliation through trade, foreign aid or other areas of international relations.
These theories and myths were not strong enough to prevent South Korea from bringing US before WTO for more than ten times though the country relies heavily on US for its security arrangements. Likewise, even though the US military is a major contributor to Japan's military as well, the latter has never shied away from bringing disputes before multilateral forum for about eight times. This is high time Bangladesh should think of making its claims.
