This is a new paper from Graham Cook of the WTO:
For those interested, here is a new paper called "Humpty Dumpty and the Illusion of 'Evolutionary Interpretation' in WTO Dispute Settlement" included in Evolutionary Interpretation and International Law (which brings together authors from diverse areas of public international law to offer a comprehensive overview of the approaches to evolutionary interpretation in different international legal regimes). Here is the abstract for this paper:
This paper offers a sceptical perspective on the existence of 'evolutionary interpretation' in WTO dispute settlement. The first part distinguishes the arresting proposition that the meaning of treaty terms change over time (evolutionary interpretation) from the rather unremarkable notion that the factual circumstances to which an old rule applies necessarily change over time (evolutionary application). It then surveys WTO jurisprudence that the prism of that distinction. It seeks to show that there is to date no instance of the Appellate Body or a panel adopting an evolutionary interpretation, in the sense of rejecting the original meaning of the terms at issue, but that there are many examples of WTO panels and the Appellate Body accepting the evolutionary application of provisions to adapt to changing factual circumstances.
