Christoph Herrmann of EUI asks the following question:
One question that puzzles me already for quite some time is the "naming" of the EC in the WTO framework. E.g. dispute settlement reports consistently refer to the "European Communities", however, in singular. Well, technically, this is not correct. Before the foundation of the WTO it may have been correct to refer to the the EEC and the EAC together as the "European Communities" as de facto Contracting Parties, but the WTO was only joined by the EC (new name of the EEC since the Treaty of Maastricht). But then, why speak of "Communities" instead of Community? It seems to rest on a fundamental misconception of the nature of the Community. The word Community refers to the central body, not to the parts of it it's been made of, insofar different from the United States
