Thread by @CoppetainPU

How important are appeals for WTO legal disputes?

Pretty important, but not (yet) life-and-death for the organisation.

In one month on Dec 10 the Appellate Body, which hears appeals in the disputes, will have only one member left, which is not enough to take up new cases

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It remains to be seen whether the two whose terms are expiring on December 10 will stay on, at least to finish appeals they are currently considering.

Whatever happens, eventually appeals will not be possible. Some countries are considering work-around solutions (see 6/6)

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But the WTO is not just about disputes, and international trade under the WTO does not rely on disputes to continue to function.

Here is some data to demonstrate why. They are figures for non-tariff measures (“SPS” and “TBT”) introduced by WTO members since 1995.

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For food safety, animal & plant health (“SPS”), out of 25,000 measures, less than 500 (<2%) are queried in the SPS Committee. The rest are just accepted. Around 90% of those queried (>99.8% of all) never become disputes.

Work in the committees is designed to AVOID disputes

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The picture is very similar for technical barriers to trade (TBT = product standards, including for health, safety & nutrition, regulations & labelling). Over 36,000 measures notified, 600 queried; 54 disputes cite TBT

A paper with the data is here: tradebetablog.files.wordpress.com/2019/08/sps-tb…

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So for some time to come, trade will continue to flow smoothly under WTO rules. Disruption may increase as countries lose respect for the rules, but it will be gradual, over many years

More details:

Short version tradebetablog.wordpress.com/2019/08/21/by-…
Long version tradebetablog.wordpress.com/2019/08/21/bot…

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