scholarly journals Introduction: Anatomy of the WTO Impasse

2018 ◽  
Vol 112 ◽  
pp. 315-316
Author(s):  
Kathleen Claussen
Keyword(s):  
World Trade Organization ◽  
World Trade ◽  
Dispute Settlement ◽  
Uruguay Round ◽  
Major Change ◽  
Settlement System ◽  
Trade Disputes ◽  
The World ◽  
The Creation ◽  
Dispute Settlement System

With the creation of the World Trade Organization (WTO) in 1995, major changes were made to the dispute settlement system that had previously governed international trade disputes. Prior to the WTO, the dispute settlement system that had evolved under the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) was widely believed to suffer from certain structural weaknesses. One perceived weakness was that the establishment of a dispute settlement panel or the adoption of a panel's report required a positive consensus of all the GATT contracting parties, effectively allowing respondents to block losing outcomes against themselves. Thus, one major change that resulted from the Uruguay Round of negotiations (which led to the creation of the WTO) was the replacement of the positive consensus rule with a negative consensus rule such that to block establishment of a panel or adoption of a panel report, all WTO members have to agree not to establish or not to adopt the report.

Substance and Style—How the WTO Adjudicators Legitimize their Decisions

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christiane Gerstetter
Keyword(s):  
World Trade Organization ◽  
World Trade ◽  
Dispute Settlement ◽  
Judicial Decision ◽  
Settlement System ◽  
Member States ◽  
Judicial Decisions ◽  
Wto Dispute Settlement ◽  
The World ◽  
Dispute Settlement System

This chapter analyses how the World Trade Organization (WTO) dispute settlement bodies legitimize their decisions and by implication also the WTO Dispute Settlement System as well as the WTO as an institution more broadly. The author argues there are two relevant dimensions for understanding how judges legitimize judicial decisions: the substantive outcomes of cases, that is who wins and loses and what interpretations are adopted, and the way a judicial decision is justified. She concludes that the WTO dispute settlement bodies act strategically in order to win the acceptance of the member states, and ultimately legitimize this dispute settlement system as a judicial entity.

Legitimating Behind the Smoke Screen in the Battle Over Clove Cigarettes

2019 ◽  
pp. 127-160
Author(s):  
Sivan Shlomo Agon
Keyword(s):  
World Trade Organization ◽  
World Trade ◽  
Goal Attainment ◽  
Dispute Settlement ◽  
Settlement System ◽  
Wto Dispute Settlement ◽  
The World ◽  
Dispute Settlement System

Recent years have confronted the World Trade Organization (WTO) Dispute Settlement System (DSS) with an intense wave of complex linkage disputes. US-Clove Cigarettes, which stands at the centre of this chapter, serves as the second case study in the investigation into the DSS’s goal-attainment endeavours in this category of WTO disputes. The chapter begins with a review of several jurisprudential milestones leading from the early US-Shrimp, examined in Chapter 5, to the more recent US-Clove Cigarettes, examined here, with a view to portraying the legitimation continuum of which the latter dispute forms a part. The chapter then discusses the intricate legitimacy setting in which US-Clove Cigarettes unfolded and, through a close goal-oriented analysis, shows how the intensified legitimacy concerns aroused shaped the goals pursued by the DSS and the judicial choices made towards their achievement. The chapter concludes by linking the goal-attainment efforts identified to the broader DSS goal-based effectiveness framework advanced in the book.

The Effectiveness of the World Trade Organization’s Dispute Settlement System

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Soo Yeon Kim
Keyword(s):  
World Trade ◽  
Dispute Settlement ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Dispute Settlement Mechanism ◽  
Settlement System ◽  
Trade Disputes ◽  
Trade Regime ◽  
Multilateral Trade ◽  
The World ◽  
Dispute Settlement System

The World Trade Organization (WTO) dispute settlement system is its judicial arm and enforcement mechanism, designed to assist members in resolving trade disputes that arise between them. Its design reflects a move toward greater legalization in trade governance under the multilateral trade regime. Compared with the dispute settlement system of its predecessor, the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), the WTO’s dispute settlement provided a more structured and formal process with clearly defined stages and more discipline in the timetable of the dispute so as to resolve trade disputes as efficiently as possible. Most important, the WTO’s dispute settlement provides for virtually automatic adoption of panel rulings: a respondent losing a case can block the adoption only if it can persuade all members of the WTO not to do so. The legal basis for the WTO’s dispute settlement system is the Dispute Settlement Understanding (DSU), which provides the principles and procedures by which members may bring their trade disputes to the multilateral trade regime for resolution. Overseeing the dispute settlement process is the Dispute Settlement Body (DSB), which consists of all WTO members and meets regularly to receive and to adopt reports of disputes at their various stages of progress. How effective is the WTO’s dispute settlement mechanism? Effectiveness can be conceptualized as success in attaining the objectives of the dispute settlement under the WTO in three areas: the efficiency of dispute settlement; inclusiveness of the dispute settlement process, especially as it concerns developing country participation; and compliance with legal obligations resulting from arbitration. The existing scholarship on this topic features key debates and frontiers for future research on firms and global production networks/value chains that have the potential to advance our state of knowledge concerning this “crown jewel” of the multilateral trade regime.

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