The Expectation of the WTO Dispute Settlement Mechanism after the "Paralysis"

Abstract

WTO dispute settlement mechanism since its birth has been known for its efficiency and fairness and is an important force to maintain the multilateral trading system, the appellate body is more known as the "Supreme Court" in the dispute settlement mechanism, but as the American impact of the appellate body and eventually lead to the lockout, the problem of the appellate agency also exposed. While the shutdown of the appellate body will not directly lead to the collapse of the existing multilateral trading system, the appellate body shutdown will create significant uncertainty for the WTO. How to survive this shutdown and restore the appellate body through the necessary innovation and improvements is not only an important task for WTO members but also the need to curb unilateralism and fight trade protectionism.

Unleashing the WTO Appellate Body: Strategies for Resolving the Deadlock

“…From the perspective of mechanism operation, World Trade Organization (WTO) has not only failed to effectively curb trade protectionism caused by economic globalization but also faced a series of problems such as stagnant dispute settlement mechanism and inefficient supervision. Therefore, many studies have discussed the institutional design flaws of the WTO from the institutional level [2,3]. Some studies focus on the analysis of member state games and internal factors of them [2].…”