Monthly archive December, 2015

A Deal is a Deal: Party Autonomy, the Multiplication of PTAs, and WTO Dispute Settlement

1. Introduction With the multiplication of preferential trade agreements (PTAs)[1], the landscape of international trade dispute settlement is becoming  increasingly populated. Many of the new-generation PTAs are equipped with dispute settlement mechanisms (DSM) modelled on that of the WTO.[2] There is an expectation that the conclusion of the so-called mega-regional agreements will significantly add to...

The primacy of the WTO dispute settlement system

1. Introduction The world trading system has seen a proliferation of Regional Trade Agreements (RTAs) since the early 1990s. Many of the RTAs negotiated in the recent times are equipped with a sophisticated dispute settlement mechanism (DSMs) clause. There is a belief that these RTA-DSMs have the potential of interfering with the integrity of the...

Is the settlement of trade disputes under Regional Trade Agreements undermining the WTO dispute settlement mechanism and the integrity of the world trading system?

Introduced by Angelica Bonfanti and Cesare Pitea The number of Regional Trade Agreements (RTAs) has increased sharply since the 1990s. As of April 2015, the WTO had received some 612 notifications of RTAs. This situation leads to two parallel phenomena. From the point of view of the substantive trade rules, it generates what has been...