Suchergebnisse

On 25 July 2022, the World Trade Organization (WTO) issued an arbitration award under Article 25 of the Dispute Settlement Understanding (DSU) on the appeal from the Panel Report in Turkey–Pharmaceuticals. This is the first use of the DSU Article 25 arbitration proceedings for the review of a WTO panel decision. As such, the case is highly significant in that it demonstrates how this alternative dispute settlement method can be successfully utilized to fulfil the function of appellate review after the Appellate Body (AB) became paralysed. Moreover, this innovative use of Article 25 arbitration may suggest a long-term solution in the reform of WTO dispute settlement. With respect to substantive legal issues, this case is also noteworthy, for it dealt with the question of public health and WTO law, a particularly sensitive topic in the post-pandemic era. This essay provides a critical review of the findings of the Panel and the Arbitrators on the substantive issues, while appraising the systemic significance of this first appeal arbitration.
WTO Dispute Settlement, DSU Article 25 Arbitration, WTO Reform, Appellate Review, GATT Article XX(b), public health, localization measure

Classical penology was conceived in France in the eighteenth century, and then eclipsed all over the world in the nineteenth, when Lombroso conjured up the picture of the born criminal. It was finally laid to rest in the United States in the twentieth century. Its basic tenet had been simple enough: the legislature in its infinite wisdom would seek and find the appropriate punishment for every crime.This can be accomplished if a crime is defined narrowly enough, perhaps by the creation of subcategories of that crime, so as to encompass all potential perpetrators who will each incur the same amount of criminal guilt. All perpetrators in the same subcategory are then entitled to the exact same amount of punishment in expiation of their criminal guilt. This system, so it was thought, ideally adjusts the punishment to achieve a balance between the crime and its harm and the criminal and his guilt, without going into undue subtleties of minute variations in the guilt of perpetrators in the same sub-category. Consequently the codes of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries could satisfy themselves with defining and categorizing crimes in terms of the harm created and the specific mens rea inquestion.

Abstract
The impasse over the appointment of judges to the World Trade Organization (WTO) Appellate Body shows no signs of abating, raising considerable doubt about the future of appellate review in WTO disputes. This paper examines the rationale for appellate review in the WTO, drawing on both the history of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade and the economic literature assessing the desirability of appellate review in judicial systems. It argues that the WTO does not present a compelling economic case for a two-stage judicial process. It further argues that if some form of appellate review is to be retained in the WTO, a discretionary 'certiorari-like' mechanism may be the best option.