This is primarily a textbook for graduate and upper-level undergraduate students of law. However, practising lawyers and policy-makers who are looking for an introduction to WTO law will also find it invaluable. The book covers both the institutional and substantive law of the WTO. While the treatment of the law is often quite detailed, the main aim of this textbook is to make clear the basic principles and underlying logic of WTO law and the world trading system. Each section contains questions and assignments, to allow students to assess their understanding and develop useful practical skills. At the end of each chapter there is a helpful summary, as well as an exercise on specific, true-to-life international trade problems.
This is a comprehensive overview of the law and practice of the World Trade Organization. It begins with the institutional law of the WTO, moving eventually to the consequences of globalization. New chapters on Trade in Agriculture and on Government Procurement and Trade.
This volume discusses the law of the World Trade Organization (WTO), the global forum for trade liberalization. It discusses in exhaustive manner the legal framework governing international trade that evolves out of the treaty regime and elaborates upon the major case law issued by the WTO. It further includes references to academic scholarship critiquing the caselaw, as well as discussions of the economic and political science theories of how WTO law is shaped.
How did a treaty that emerged in the aftermath of the Second World War, and barely survived its early years, evolve into one of the most influential organisations in international law? This unique book brings together original contributions from an unprecedented number of eminent current and former GATT and WTO staff members, including many current and former Appellate Body members, to trace the history of law and lawyers in the GATT/WTO and explore how the nature of legal work has evolved over the institution's sixty-year history. In doing so, it paints a fascinating portrait of the development of the rule of law in the multilateral trading system, and allows some of the most important personalities in GATT and WTO history to share their stories and reflect on the WTO's remarkable journey from a 'provisionally applied treaty' to an international organisation defined by its commitment to the rule of law.
The History and Future of the World Trade Organization is a comprehensive account of the economic, political and legal issues surrounding the creation of the WTO and its evolution. Fully illustrated with colour and black-and-white photos dating back to the early days of trade negotiations, the publication reviews the WTO's achievements as well as the challenges faced by the organisation, and identifies the key questions that WTO members need to address in the future. The book describes the intellectual roots of the trading system, membership of the WTO and the growth of the Geneva trade community, trade negotiations and the development of coalitions among the membership, and the WTO's relations with other international organisations and civil society. Also covered are the organisation's robust dispute settlement rules, the launch and evolution of the Doha Round, the rise of regional trade agreements, and the leadership and management of the WTO.
The World Trade Organization (WTO) is one of the most important international organizations in existence today. It contains a set of disciplines that affect the ability of governments to impose trade restrictions, and has helped to support the steady expansion of international trade since the 1950s. It is a unique organization in providing a framework for member states to make binding policy commitments that are enforced through a unique dispute settlement system and a variety of transparency mechanisms. Despite – or because of – its success, the WTO has recently become the focus of vociferous protests by anti-globalization activists. This book separates the facts from the propaganda and provides an accessible overview of the WTO's history, structure and policies as well as a discussion of the future of the organization. It also confronts the criticisms of the WTO and assesses their validity.
The editors have succeeded in bringing together an excellent mix of leading scholars and practitioners. No book on the WTO has had this wide a scope before or covered the legal framework, economic and political issues, current and would-be countries and a outlook to the future like these three volumes do. 3000 pages, 80 chapters in 3 volumes cover a very interdiscplinary field that touches upon law, economics and politics.
Any experienced lawyer knows that cases are most often won or lost on procedural grounds; yet procedural issues are often considered too technical for proper treatment in legal literature. In this extensively revised new edition of Palmeter and Mavroidis' authoritative book on WTO dispute settlement, the authors discuss all WTO dispute settlement provisions and their interpretation in WTO jurisprudence. All the decisions of panels and the Appellate Body are discussed, from the inception of the WTO in 1995 until the end of May 2003. Although the book contains considerable technical expertise, it is at the same time written for accessibility to a wide readership. This volume - an essential tool for practitioners, diplomats and government lawyers - is a comprehensive study of compulsory third party adjudication in international law.
Global Trade Law Series Volume-54 The World Trade Organization (WTO) Dispute Settlement Understanding (DSU) entered into force in 1995. Since then, it has spawned an extensive body of jurisprudence, making it a highly complex system to navigate. This book provides the first in-depth practical guide to resolving a dispute at the WTO, edited by an international lawyer, who has on-hands experience in WTO litigation. Contributors of individual chapters include government officials responsible for WTO dispute settlement from developing and developed countries, WTO Secretariat officials, a former member of the Appellate Body, academics specializing in international trade and related fields, and lawyers from major law firms specializing in WTO law. Contributors explain, in a detailed manner, the numerous procedural steps and practices developed over the past twenty-five years, on: preparing for WTO litigation; recognizing the importance of WTO consultations; presenting a case before a panel; panel requests and panels’ terms of reference; the role and assistance of the WTO Secretariat; the panel process; rules of evidence; confidentiality and transparency; additional working procedures for the treatment of confidential information; legal remedies to redeem a violation; general considerations for appeal; determining the reasonable period of time for compliance; retaliation proceedings; and use of non-WTO international law. Each contributor identifies the best practices and some of them also suggest potential areas for improvement of the dispute settlement mechanism from their respective points of view. Lawyers and advisors working on WTO law and stakeholders from the private sector, civil society and academia, interested in WTO litigation, will find in one source a deeply informed description of existing dispute resolution practices (some of them previously undocumented) including the most recent jurisprudence clarifying the scope of many procedural rules. With its real-life account of WTO dispute settlement procedures and its key insights and advice from WTO insiders, this book constitutes an expert assessment of a cornerstone of the rules-based multilateral trading system and will prove of enormous value to all stakeholders in international trade.
