Resolution of disputes in the context of international trade: GATT v WTO Dispute Settlement System - Essay Example

Even so academic scholars, non-government organizations, environmentalists and trade diplomats have registered a measure of unease with the jurisdictional reach of the WTO tribunals and questions whether or not these tribunals should have the authority to determine important issues such as those connected to the value of trade and the environment generally.3 This research study provides a comparative analysis of the pre-existing GATT dispute resolution system with the current WTO DSU for the purpose of determining the utility of the WTO DSU as an improvement over GATT’s dispute resolution system.

The research is conducted by a systematic review of the literature and concludes that the WTO DSU is a significant improvement over the GATT dispute resolution system with respect to international trade disputes, however those issues of concern particularly the jurisdictional scope of the WTO’s DSU are identified and how those concerns can be abated. In 1947, approximately 23 countries subscribed to the GATT. At that time GATT was meant to be no more than a stepping stone toward the implementation of a more robust multilateral trade agreement: the International Trade Organization (ITO).

GATT continued forward however and at the outset targeted the removal or the reduction of tariff and non-tariff obstacles to international trade in the aftermath of the Second World War. In time member states became increasingly concerned with other factors relative to international trade especially the complications involved in trade exigencies and the extent to which countries became more intertwined and more dependent on one another. As negotiations for the implementation of the more robust ITO broke down, a new organization would be formed: the WTO in 1995.

4 There are over 130 member states to the WTO and the regime issued a number or trade rules on trade in goods, services and trade-related intellectual property issues. Overall, the WTO like GATT strives to promote and encourage the liberalization of trade via negotiations and also provides a dispute resolution process. However, the WTO has a number of challenges that have arisen out of the extent to which its contracting states interact with one another.5 These challenges are best understood by reference to the history and formation of the WTO.

As the Second World War drew to an end in 1944, the Bretton Woods Conference recommended the