The WTO Dispute Settlement System 1995-2003

In its ten years of existence, the World Trade Organization (WTO) dispute settlement system has continued to differentiate itself in many ways from more conventional international judicial proceedings such as those before the International Court of Justice (ICJ) or regional integration courts. The regular participation of third parties, the emphasis at all levels of the "ordinary meaning" of the text of WTO rules, and the raft of proposed amendments to the Dispute Settlement Understanding (DSU) all characterise WTO jurisprudence. However, when the WTO launched its September 2003 Ministerial Conference at Cancun, it finds itself with a body of law covering 25,000 pages - a complex mass of material that is here subjected to the kind of analysis that distinguished this book's predecessor, the pioneering 1997 work International Trade Law and the GATT/WTO Dispute Settlement System, edited by Professor Ernst-Ulrich Petersmann. In twenty-six incisive contributions, this book covers both the "legislative" and "(quasi) judicial" activities encompassed by the WTO dispute settlement system. Essays concerned with rules emphasise proposed improvements and clarifications in such areas as special