Preventing the Bad from Getting Worse: The End of the World (Trade Organization) As We Know It?

Abstract Recent survey evidence illustrates that many World Trade Organization (WTO) members and trade practitioners believe that the WTO dispute settlement system needs improvement. We make several proposals to improve the operation of WTO conflict resolution, drawing on proposals made by WTO members in the long-running negotiations to improve WTO dispute settlement procedures. We argue that a focus on technical dimensions of dispute settlement is insufficient to prevent a steady decline in the salience of the organization. Revitalizing the WTO as a forum for rule-making is needed both to address the cross-border policy spillovers driving trade conflicts between the major trading powers and to improve WTO conflict resolution. Principals – WTO members – should accept that negotiations to clarify and extend existing rules must be an element of a robust system of dispute settlement and that bolstering WTO dispute settlement is a necessary condition for nascent efforts at plurilateral rule-making to be successful.