Finding a Rule-Based Solution to the Appellate Body Crisis: Looking Beyond the Multiparty Interim Appeal Arbitration Arrangement

Henry Gao

Journal of International Economic Law, 2021, vol. 24, issue 3, 534-550

Abstract: The WTO dispute settlement system is in crisis due to the persistent blockage of the appointment of Appellate Body members by the United States. This paper reviews the US criticisms against the Appellate Body and argues that its allegations are unfounded and its approach is wrong. To deal with the US blockage, various proposals have been made, with the most popular being the Multiparty Interim Appeal Arbitration Arrangement (MPIA) set up by several key Members including the European Union and China. After a thorough analysis of the key features of the MPIA from both theoretical and practical perspectives, this paper argues that the MPIA fails to provide a proper solution to the Appellate Body crisis due to its many defects. Instead, the paper suggests the appointment of Appellate Body members based on majority voting at the General Council. This paper concludes by noting that only such a rule-based solution can not only solve the current Appellate Body crisis but also deter similar attempts to sabotage the WTO dispute settlement system in the future.

Date: 2021
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1093/jiel/jgab031 (application/pdf)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:oup:jieclw:v:24:y:2021:i:3:p:534-550.

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://academic.oup.com/journals

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of International Economic Law is currently edited by Kathleen Claussen, Sergio Puig and Michael Waibel

More articles in Journal of International Economic Law from Oxford University Press Oxford University Press, Great Clarendon Street, Oxford OX2 6DP, UK.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Oxford University Press ().