Regarding US-Japanese trade disputes, it might be useful to keep in mind that in the wider context of the WTO it can also be of interest on which side the larger European countries and the EU would place themselves. In the automobile dispute as in other similar cases, the interests of Europeans are largely similar to those of America, and the European complaint is essentially about US bilateralism. But it is quite different for the air traffic dispute as well as for California's _unitary tax_ mentioned by Professor Campbell: Here, Europeans find themselves allied to Japan. And in the air traffic case, this results of course from the fact that American air traffic hegemony was one of the features of the post-war order from which Europeans as well as Japanese want to emanicpate themselves.

Gerhard Lehmbruch

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