As the WTO’s appeals panel, sometimes dubbed the supreme court of world trade, closes its doors, the settling of disputes may get ugly
Bullets have been flying in the world of international trade lately but, as of today, there’s no longer a sheriff in town. A crisis brewing for years comes to a head at the World Trade Organization as its final appeals forum for global disputes — the Appellate Body — closes its doors.
This means work on most of the 14 appeals currently being considered involving billions of dollars’ worth of trade disputes will just stop, with the exception of four “advanced” cases. A likely European Union appeal against a WTO verdict that it failed to end illegal subsidies for aerospace firm Airbus – the latest round in a 15-year dispute that triggered U.S. tariffs on $7.5 billion of EU goods in October – will also have nowhere to go.As well as effectively shutting the appellate, the U.S.
Aside from the difficulty of achieving consensus among 164 members, the U.S. is also unhappy at the likes of China and India self-declaring themselves entitled to “special and preferential treatment” under WTO rules. “Until recently you had 10 of the G20 nations declaring themselves as developing countries,” Petsinger says.
The U.S. isn’t alone in its mistrust of the appellate; Japan was stung by a ruling in April that overturned an initial panel decision and allowed South Korea to keep import restrictions on Japanese fish in place in the wake of the 2011 Fukushima nuclear accident. The demise of the body does not mean the complete end of international dispute resolution.
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