Paper's abstract

Hélène Ruiz Fabri, The Dispute Settlement of the WTO: a Form of Arbitration?
Could the Dispute Settlement System of the WTO be considered as arbitration set apart from judicial settlement? In fact, this system includes several means of dispute settlement among which at least three are expressly qualified as arbitrations. But not only some of them don't have the features to deserve this qualification but their functioning and their current role within the system does not allow to consider the whole system as being arbitration. Such a conclusion could be reached only if the main procedure implying panels and the Appellate Body could be considered as arbitration. Relying on the hypothesis that the main difference between arbitration and judicial settlement is that the latest fulfills a supplementary function of legal policy where the first is contained to settle disputes, the analysis concludes that notably by the effect of an appeal phase and the correlate development of a unified case law, the system is closer to judicial settlement than to arbitration.

Key Words : WTO, dispute settlement
t. 52, 2009 : p. 97-120