Dispute Settlement Reform Slogs Along

The facilitator overseeing the work on the World Trade Organization’s dispute settlement reform presented a report June 20 on various aspects of the central issue concerning the “appeal/review” mechanism that could replace the binding Appellate Body and thereby attenuate the enforcement function of the multilateral trade body, said people familiar with the developments.

Without a robust enforcement function undergirding the two-tier dispute settlement system, which is seen as the jewel in the crown of the Uruguay Round trade agreements that created the WTO in 1995, the value purpose of negotiating any new agreements would become meaningless, said people familiar with the negotiations.