Originally from:
The WTO: Governance, Dispute Settlement & Developing Countries
The WTO: Governance, Dispute Settlement & Developing Countries-Digital
Chapter 46 - Preview Page
Mapping the Law of WTO Accession
Steve Charnovitz
This chapter explores the looming and potentially controversial legal issues surrounding the law of accession in the WTO. Many of the recent accession negotiations have been quite detailed, with WTO Members nailing down numerous commitments by the applicant government (for example, China) seeking to join the WTO.1 If these commitments are not implemented, the governments that insisted upon them may invoke WTO dispute settlement.
Dispute settlement in the WTO has proven to be more legalized than many in the trade community anticipated during the Uruguay Round of trade negotiations that established the WTO.2 The WTO panel system has been described as “judicial” by the Appellate Body, which has supported this observation by making it clear that first-level panels “necessarily” have to consider its views, and “rely” on its reasoning and rulings, and that the Appellate Body’s decisions are meant to provide “interpretive guidance for future panels . . . .”3 During the past decade, the dispute...
About the Author:
Steve Charnovitz is an Associate Professor at George Washington University Law School.