Introduction

The World Trade Organization (WTO), established by the results of the Uruguay Round of trade negotiations (1986–94), has put in place one of the most far-reaching systems of international dispute settlement that has ever existed. After only eight and one-half years of experience, as of July 2003, this system had received 295 complaints and completed 126 reports, including 79 first level panel reports (resulting from 92 complaints) and 47 Appellate Body reports, plus a series of reports of post-decision procedural controversies. Only 26 first level panel reports have not been appealed. (The total of Appellate Body reports plus first level panel reports that were not appealed is thus 47 + 26 = 73, which represents the cases completed through the final report stage.) These reports total more than 22,000 pages of jurisprudence, comprising an extraordinary body of analysis and reasoning with many implications for international law and international economic relations.

This dispute settlement (DS) system, with its unique appeal procedure, is proving to be the centrepiece of the new trade organization, provoking both firm praise and acerbic criticism. With its basis of compulsory jurisdiction, combined with findings in reports that are virtually automatically approved (and thus binding on the nation state), WTO member disputants, diplomats, and national political leaders are manifesting uneasiness about the power of the system.