WTO dispute settlement, various means other than panel procedures continuity & change

Extraits de l'exposé

[...] The new system incorporates many features of the existing GATT procedures. It confers a greater position to the panel procedure, introducing important innovations such as the creation of a new organ, the Dispute Settlement Body with an Appellate Body[21]. The Understanding confers also a privileged place to the political and diplomatic methods of Dispute Settlement. The Understanding contains a large range of various ways to settle disputes out of legal proceedings. The most important (consultations, good offices, conciliation and mediation) are contained in Articles 4 and 5. [...]

[...] Thus, before 1994, more than twenty instances have involved a third party in the consultation process. Otherwise, if a request to join is refused, the third party can always seek separate bilateral consultations under Article 4(3). As of October 1998, there have been some 148 consultation requests and most of them were successful. This record shows that most international trade disputes are resolved in the consultation stage. Furthermore, far more dispute have been settled by consultations than by panels, this being in fact the method by which most disputes are resolved in practice. [...]

[...] The Dispute Settlement Understanding incorporates many features of the existing GATT procedures. However, to deal with the deficiencies briefly identified above, a number of major innovations were also introduced[18]. These changes confer to the panel method a new importance, whereas the consultation procedure is consolidated. II. The importance of the diplomatic-political methods of Dispute Settlement under the WTO As mentioned above, the Articles XXII and XXIII of the GATT 1947 were the basis of the dispute settlement practice. The debate over these practices was often cast in terms of "rules v. [...]

[...] This third body provides the protagonists with an objective assessment. The disputing parties may agree in advance to accept the report of the impartial party entrusted with the establishment of facts as binding. Conciliation One of the two disputing parties can also request a conciliation commission, which thus forms a formal legal and institutionalised basis. Conciliation bodies act independently and usually take all the relevant factors of the case into account (facts, claims of the parties, legal situation . They submit legally non-binding proposals for a possible settlement. [...]

[...] - H. Ruiz Fabri, Règlement des Différents au Sein de l'OMC, Naissance d'une Juridiction, Consolidation d'un Droit?, in Mélanges Philippe Kahn, Litec (2000). - M.J. Trebilcock & R. Howse, The Regulation of International Trade, Routeledge (1999). - J.H.H. Weiler, Rule of Lawyers and the Ethos of Diplomats: Reflections on the Internal and External Legitimacy of WTO Dispute Settlement?, Harvard Jean Monnet Working Paper, 9/00. - WTO Secretariat, The WTO Dispute Settlement Procedures, Cambridge (2001). - Websites: www.wto.org www.eurunion.org/news/press/2002/2002011.htm www-hoover.Stanford.edu/publications/epp/105/105b.html www.finances.gouv.fr/omc2000/omc2000.htm J.G. [...]