WTO Members Briefed on Start of Dispute Settlement Talks
Mauritius' Usha Dwarka-Canabady, facilitator of the WTO's dispute settlement reform talks, briefed WTO members on June 20 regarding the start of the formal negotiations process, the WTO announced. Dwarka-Canabady said that after she presented the "work plan on the dispute settlement reform process," members backed the idea of focusing first on appeals and reviews of dispute settlement decisions, then pivoting to the entire package and other issues.
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The WTO members also heard from the co-convenors of the negotiations process. The WTO said Mexico's Claudia Diaz Paulino said "a work plan was finalized for the technical discussions through end of July," which took stock of members' concerns on the "clash of some technical meetings with other WTO meetings."
On the substantive reform issues, the co-covenors divvied the talks into six sub-topics: access to the mechanism, clarifying expectations of adjudicators, form of the mechanism, reducing or changing incentives to appeal, scope of review and standard of review.
Regarding accessibility, the co-convenors cut the issue into five sub-topics: meaning of accessibility, costs and administrative burdens, technical assistance, existing internal and external support mechanisms, and expedited procedures for dispute resolution.
The co-convenors held the first technical meeting on the appeal process on June 19, which centered on the scope of review and standard of review, the WTO said. The first accessibility-focused meeting was held June 21. The next "Heads of Delegation meeting" on reform talks is set for July 18.