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Julia Qin

DSU Article 25 Arbitration: A Long-Term Solution for the Appellate Body Crisis?

To date, proposals for the reform of WTO dispute settlement have focused on institutional improvements of the AB, as represented by the Walker proposal, or possible replacement of the two-tier adjudication with one-tier adjudication by a standing body of full-time panelists, as suggested by Hoekman and Marvroidis (“To AB or

The Elephant in the Room: The Missing Claim in DS543

The outcome of the Panel decision in the case of Section 301 Tariffs against China (DS543) is unsurprising - few would have expected that the United States could successfully invoke the public moral exception under GATT XX(a) to justify its Section 301 tariffs. But the Panel Report does contain

“Personal Dignity” as a Non-Trade Value in Trade Policy?

I was struck by the notion of “personal dignity” in USTR Lighthizer’s recent article “How to Make Trade Work for Workers.” He framed the article by asking the question: “What should the objective of trade policy be?” Instead of the goals of promoting world peace and economic efficiency, Lighthizer

Is a return to the appellate body as originally intended possible?

I was struck by two particular passages in the USTR Report on the Appellate Body, and wonder whether they signal the USTR’s intention about the future of the WTO Dispute Settlement system. The first is paragraph 3 of the Introduction: On a more fundamental level, this [AB] overreaching also

US-China Tariff War: A Lesson about WTO Law

The US first written submission in the Section 301 case (DS543) is an eye-opening read. To me, the ingenious arguments advanced by the USTR, no matter how far-fetched they may seem in places, raise some interesting questions and teach a valuable lesson about WTO law. I. A brief analysis of

Benchmarking under SCM 14(d): How should China’s in-country competition be treated?

Aside from the issue of public body blogged by Simon last week, the issue of market benchmarks under SCM 14(d) is at the center of the AB DS437 (21.5) report. In fact, the issue of benchmarking is more critical than that of public body in this case, since

Could the US-China trade conflict be dealt with within the WTO framework?

The United States and China engaged in a high-level trade negotiation in Beijing on May 3 and 4. The two sides exchanged views but did not reach any agreement on specific issues. The FT has now published the Draft Framework prepared by the US in advance of the negotiation. The

WTO@20 Conference in Beijing

A major WTO law conference will take place at Tsinghua University, Beijing, later this week. Notably, a number of current and former members of the Appellate Body will be there. Here is the information from the conference website: WTO at 20：Multilateral Trading System, Dispute Settlement and Developing Countries Tsinghua

Significant Developments in SCM Benchmarking Jurisprudence

Within the last two weeks, the Appellate Body has issued two important decisions interpreting the SCM Agreement: US-Carbon Steel (India) (DS436), and US-CVD (China) (DS437). In DS436, India raised numerous complex issues under SCM; in DS437, China mounted a systematic challenge to more than a dozen US CVD investigations. While

Russia’s Account of Negotiation History: Reason for Deletion Further Explained

On the question raised in my last post – what was the reason for deleting from Russia’s accession protocol the sentence on non-derogation of its rights under the WTO Agreement – I have now located further explanation in Annex C-9 to the Panel Report in Rare Earths, INTEGRATED EXECUTIVE SUMMARY OF