International Economic Law and Policy Blog

Sign in Subscribe

Topic

WTO Disputes

172 posts

Collective Economic Security

Collective Economic Security By Mona Paulsen (LSE Law) and Dan Ciuriak (C.D. Howe (Senior Fellow)) With a flurry of pomp and circumstance, the second Trump administration has reset United States trade with its trading partners. Based on U.S. laws that afford wide Executive discretion towards trade actions owing

Managing Risks as a GATT Exception under GATT Article XX(j)

In January 2024, the EU will offer more information about its strategy for economic security. After the pandemic and war, the focus is on an approach to risk management. While we await more details, this post probes past jurisprudence to assess how earlier WTO adjudicators handled the potential of an

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

Negotiating After a Loss – ADR and the US Steel Tariff Cases

How can the WTO facilitate negotiation between disputing WTO Members? DSU Article 5 offers all disputing WTO Members flexible dispute processes via good offices, conciliation, or mediation. Such proceedings may begin at any time (see fn 59), end at any time, precede formal dispute proceedings, and continue while a panel

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

The Curious Case of US Self-Judging, Part 2

Last Friday, the United States appealed the US-Origin Marking Requirement (DS597) and the US-Steel and Aluminium Products (DS544,552, 556, 564) reports. With the appeal came news that the US would lead an effort to draft an authoritative interpretation of GATT Article XXI. This U.S. administration will want to

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

Sabine Weyand Comments on WTO Dispute Settlement Reform

At a CSIS event today on "Rethinking Trade In a Geopolitical Context: Trends and Transatlantic Cooperation," European Commission Director General for Trade Sabine Weyand spoke with Bill Reinsch about a number of issues, and they had this exchange on WTO dispute settlement reform: Reinsch: This [question] comes from

Katherine Tai on WTO Dispute Settlement Reform

U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai spoke today at an event hosted by The Institute of International and European Affairs. Here is something she said on WTO dispute settlement reform: On dispute settlement, ... I think that we need to come back to first principles ... . I know there's a

Katherine Tai on WTO Dispute Settlement

U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai gave a speech on WTO issues in Geneva today at the Graduate Institute's Geneva Trade Platform. Here is the section on WTO dispute settlement: Over the past quarter century, WTO members have discovered that they can get around the hard part of