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DSU 25 Interim Appeals

43 posts

The U.S. Comments On the MPIA and Treaty Interpretation

At the December 19 DSB meeting, the U.S. tied one of its broad criticisms of the WTO dispute settlement system to a recent criticism by another WTO Member of a specific MPIA award: • We would like to make one further point in response to the interventions we just heard

Some MPIA Updates

This post is a brief one just to provide a few updates on disputes in which an appeal has been or might be heard by the MPIA arbitrators.

The UK Joins the MPIA

The UK has just set out its new trade strategy, and one point in there is that it will be joining the MPIA: The WTO has an almost unique function to resolve trade disputes. That trade dispute system is busier than ever but, since 2019, it has lacked an appellate

MPIA Update: A New Party Joins and Four New Arbitrators are Appointed

I mentioned here that Paraguay had joined the MPIA in early May. Since then, Malaysia has joined too, bringing us to 29 parties (counting the EU and its 27 member states as one). But the bigger news is that there has been a successful transition to a partially re-composed arbitrator

The Second MPIA Appeal

The second appeal of a WTO panel report to the MPIA is underway in the China - IPRs Enforcement (EU) dispute (DS611). It will be interesting to see what approach the arbitrators take in terms of their scrutiny of the panel report. On the fairly technical IP issues that were

Would the U.S. Join a Version of the MPIA?

I have a new piece for the Japan Economic Foundation that asks "Would the United States Join the MPIA?" This is from the conclusion: The Appellate Body appointments crisis has dragged on for years now. The MPIA represents a solution for any WTO member that wants to ensure

A WTO DS Workaround for Appeals Into the Void

Where the party complained against in a WTO dispute appeals into the void and thereby blocks an adverse panel report from having legal effect, can the complaining party just treat the panel report as the final word and move forward with retaliation? The EU has set up a process for

China and Japan Agree To Use MPIA for DS601 Dispute

In a post last month after Japan joined the MPIA, I said: Why is Japan making this announcement right now? Hard to say for sure, and there could be a number of things going on, but as Dmitry Grozoubinski pointed out to me, the ongoing panel hearing Japan's

Japan Joins the MPIA

There seems to be a bit of momentum with the MPIA these days. There was the recently issued Colombia - Frozen Fries award, which MPIA Arbitrator Joost Pauwelyn told us about. And now Japan is joining the arrangement, as METI just announced: More than three years have passed since the

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