God, the WTO – and hunger

The WTO dispute settlement system is unusually strong but not necessarily unique. How the Appellate Body reads the WTO covered agreements is not a matter of WTO law, it is a technique of general international law. The Appellate Body comes to interpretation from within its function in the WTO institution as a juridical body. This book explains how the Appellate Body approaches the interpretation of the WTO covered agreements, and contributes to a more general understanding of how treaties are interpreted in practice. It is as much about general international law as it is about WTO law.

How does the World Trade Organization (WTO) relate to the wider corpus of public international law? What, in turn, is the role of public international law in WTO dispute settlement? This paper aims at resolving these two difficult questions. No straightforward answers to them can be found in WTO rules. Yet answering them has major ramifications both for the WTO (is the WTO a largely “self-contained regime” or is it not?) and for international law (is the future of international law further fragmentation or increased unity?). This exercise will be conducted under the law as it stands today—that is, the law as it may be invoked at present before the WTO “judiciary” (panels and the Appellate Body). Of course, WTO members (viz., the WTO “legislator”) could clarify or change the relationship between WTO rules and other rules of international law. However, it is unlikely that such changes will occur any time soon. In part I, I examine the general relationship between public international law and WTO law. I then assess, more specifically, the role of public international law in WTO dispute settlement in part II and offer some conclusions in part III.