Originally from:
The WTO: Governance, Dispute Settlement & Developing Countries
The WTO: Governance, Dispute Settlement & Developing Countries-Digital
Chapter 45 - Preview Page
The WTO Dispute Settlement System in the Next Ten Years
David Palmeter
In 1995, the editors of the Fordham International Law Journal asked a group of lawyers to consider the role of international law in the twenty-first century. I was asked to contribute a short piece on international trade law.1 The resulting essay comprised fewer than five printed pages, but writing it was difficult because, like most lawyers, I do not possess a crystal ball. Compared with the difficulty of opining on all of international trade law for an entire century to come, however, the task of discussing the dispute settlement system of a single organization for the coming decade should be easy. Perhaps it should be, but it’s not.
The dispute settlement system has been, and no doubt will continue to be, the crown jewel of the WTO. It has come a long way from the GATT, when Robert Hudec could observe, quite accurately, that, “on the tree of legal evolution, GATT’s adjudication machinery is still down at the level studied by legal anthropologists, right alongside dispute resolution ceremonies practiced by primitive societies.”2 But even this system Abram Chayes and Antonia Handler Chayes could describe, also quite accurately, as “the most developed and most active system of formal dispute settlement” of all international regimes.3
It seems safe to predict that the WTO dispute settlement system will continue to be a highlight of the organization in its second decade. But beyond that what can we say? In this chapter, I will address this question from four perspectives: the caseload and its composition; three criticisms of the present system; the Doha Round and its possible impact; and, finally, I will comment on the instrumental value of the system to its Members.
About the Author:
David Palmeter is Senoir Cousel at Sidley Austin LLP.