The WTO dispute settlement process: did the negotiators get what they wanted?

Abstract

The short answer to the question posed in the title is for the most part ‘yes’. The negotiators' objectives grew out of their governments' unsatisfactory experiences with GATT dispute settlement and they set out to fix what was wrong with the system. In the Uruguay Round result, WTO Members have established a system that is truly multilateral and at the same time works effectively and efficiently. Today the system is used by developed and developing countries alike and has shown itself capable of resolving extremely difficult and politically sensitive trade disputes. At the end of the Uruguay Round, the results of these negotiations were warmly praised in key capitals around the world, including in Washington. But there is at least one important US objective that, in practice, turned out not to have been met (at least in the way intended) in the Uruguay Round negotiations. Another important objective of many of the negotiators now appears to have backfired to an extent that several WTO Members are seeking to revisit their earlier achievement.