Home | Databases | WorldLII | Search | Feedback Edited Legal Collections Data

Dawar, Kamala; Holmes, Peter --- "Negotiation or Litigation? The Curiously Evolving Governance of the WTO" [2009] ELECD 386; in Yueh, Linda (ed), "The Law and Economics of Globalisation" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2009)

Book Title: The Law and Economics of Globalisation

Editor(s): Yueh, Linda

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

ISBN (hard cover): 9781845421953

Section: Chapter 4

Section Title: Negotiation or Litigation? The Curiously Evolving Governance of the WTO

Author(s): Dawar, Kamala; Holmes, Peter

Number of pages: 25

Extract:

4. Negotiation or litigation? The
curiously evolving governance of the
WTO
Kamala Dawar and Peter Holmes

INTRODUCTION

Within five years of the creation of the WTO it was already becoming
apparent that the institution's stability was at risk because of an emerging
imbalance in its constitution (Holmes 2001). The political decision-making
capacity of the WTO was in paralysis while the judicial element in the form
of the Dispute Settlement Body (DSB) was proving to be remarkably suc-
cessful. Within this set up were contained the seeds of major problems:
an international body making decisions over some of the most sensitive
international economic and political issues, including literally some life
and death issues, with no political element, is a recipe for crisis. The 2001
Doha Round of negotiations was supposed to rectify this imbalance, but
as is well known the talks have progressed extremely slowly. While there
has been substantial progress on one area, TRIPS,1 the overall slow pace
of WTO negotiations forms the backdrop to this paper.
Jackson (2006: 4) observed `I think the [Dispute Settlement Body] is
the most powerful of all the economic organizations that exist. A tension
has developed between this dispute settlement system and the rest of the
organization.' This chapter continues to focus on this particular tension
by examining how the DSB has reacted to its position within this imbal-
ance ­ which is even more exposed than in 2001. The chapter argues that
the Appellate Body has reacted politically, in a style ...