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The WTO dispute settlement process: did the negotiators get what they wanted?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 June 2004

ANDREW L. STOLER
ANDREW L. STOLER
Affiliation:
Institute for International Business, Economics and Law, University of Adelaide, Australia
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Abstract

The short answer to the question posed in the title is for the most part ‘yes’. The negotiators' objectives grew out of their governments' unsatisfactory experiences with GATT dispute settlement and they set out to fix what was wrong with the system. In the Uruguay Round result, WTO Members have established a system that is truly multilateral and at the same time works effectively and efficiently. Today the system is used by developed and developing countries alike and has shown itself capable of resolving extremely difficult and politically sensitive trade disputes. At the end of the Uruguay Round, the results of these negotiations were warmly praised in key capitals around the world, including in Washington. But there is at least one important US objective that, in practice, turned out not to have been met (at least in the way intended) in the Uruguay Round negotiations. Another important objective of many of the negotiators now appears to have backfired to an extent that several WTO Members are seeking to revisit their earlier achievement.

Type
From the trenches
Information
World Trade Review , Volume 3 , Issue 1 , March 2004 , pp. 99 - 118
Copyright
2004 Andrew L. Stoler

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Footnotes

This is a revised version of a paper first presented at the Dartmouth-Tuck Forum on International Trade and Business in Washington, DC on 16–17 May 2003. In general, the author has tried to discuss the objectives in the negotiations from the standpoint of WTO DSU negotiators representing all of the main players in the Uruguay Round, although he was himself a negotiator for the United States at that time. The discussion relative to the special standard of review for antidumping has a decided US tilt to it owing to the fact that this has always been an issue specific to the United States.