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Appellate Body

71 posts

Alan Sykes on Making WTO Appeals Discretionary

Stanford law prof Alan Sykes has posted a new paper entitled "The Utility of Appellate Review at the WTO and Its Optimal Structure." One part of the paper that I found particularly interesting was his call for any appeals body to have discretion over what appeals to hear:

Two Reasons for a Two-Tier WTO Dispute Settlement System

As part of the WTO DS reform exercise, USTR officials have mentioned the importance of having WTO Members explain what they see as their interests in the system. In a recent communication to the WTO, Bangladesh, Egypt, India, Indonesia and South Africa have weighed in on their interest in a

Should a WTO Appeals Body Be Able To Uphold an Appealed Issue Without Any Reasoning?

Back in June 2019, when the Appellate Body was hanging on for dear life, I offered this argument for allowing the Appellate Body to decline to offer any reasoning in situations where it was just upholding a panel's finding: I recently read something about the U.S. Judiciary

Some Interesting Reporting on U.S. Proposals for WTO DS Reform

Geneva-based reporter Ravi Kanth has two detailed pieces (here and here) on U.S. proposals for WTO dispute settlement reform, and the reaction of other Members to those proposals. It's difficult to analyze all of this without seeing the actual U.S. proposals, but I'm going

The MPIA: What’s New? (Part I)

On 21 December 2022, more than two and a half years after its creation, the World Trade Organization’s (WTO’s) Multi-Party Interim Appeal Arbitration Arrangement (MPIA) finally produced its first appellate award.[1] The inaugural MPIA award was issued in a dispute filed by the EU in November 2019

Do Appeals Have To Go into the "Void"?

Reading over some DSU provisions again, I wonder if there is an argument that appeals need not go into the "void" in the absence of the Appellate Body, at least not permanently. DSU Article 16.4 says: "If a party has notified its decision to appeal, the

Fixing the WTO Dispute Settlement Crisis Requires U.S. Reform Proposals

Here's an excerpt from a short piece I wrote for IISD Trade and Sustainability Review about the WTO dispute settlement crisis: ... the key here, regardless of whether it is the Appellate Body specifically or dispute settlement more generally [that the U.S. is concerned with], is to make

Is it time to bring back the AB?

Greg Shaffer and I think so in our new op-ed in the Hill, but not everyone seems to agree with us, as illustrated in this lively Twitter exchange with Dan Ikenson, Rob Howse and Simon Lester. However, I think there might be some movement on this issue in the WTO

Maria Pagan on Reforming WTO Dispute Settlement and the Appellate Body

This exchange is from today's Senate Finance Committee hearing to consider the nomination of Maria Pagan for Deputy USTR in Geneva (Ambassador to the WTO): Senator Carper: I would like to start off with a question ... for Ms. Pagan, dealing with WTO reform. Ms. Pagan, I've

The G7 on Trade: Some Hope for US Return to Binding Multilateral Dispute Settlement?

Judged by the recent past, the G7 meeting in the UK (with key US allies) was a resounding success. But then again, the Trump administration created a low bar. In 2019, there was no G7 communiqué for the first time—because of divisions on trade. And in 2020 there was