Washington must help WTO members rebuild appellate body

With the multi-party interim appeal arbitration arrangement (MPIA) of the World Trade Organization reaching an agreement on the list of arbitrators and establishing a 10-member arbitrators' panel on July 31, the MPIA can now fill the vacant posts in the WTO's dispute settlement mechanism. Operations of the dispute settlement mechanism have been suspended since late 2018 because it has only one judge and the United States has blocked the appointment of new judges since 2017.

The newly elected arbitrators' panel means the MPIA can handle the dispute cases WTO members have filed since 2018. The arbitrators' panel was established thanks to the strong support of the European Union, China, Brazil and some other WTO members, signaling a victory of multilateralism over unilateralism.

As expected, the US has objected to the MPIA handling dispute cases saying the WTO public budget should not be used to fund it. The US' opposition to the WTO's appellate body goes back decades, and both Republican and Democrat presidents have alleged that it acts beyond its authority.

Yet the US is opposed to the appellate body not because it wants WTO reforms but because it wants to protect its own interests, which in essence is an abuse of power.

Also, other WTO members' support for the MPIA is in response to Washington's anti-free trade policy and therefore should not be interpreted as a rejection of the US as an important member of the WTO.

Hopefully, the US will abandon unilateralism and trade protectionism and, instead, settle trade disputes through the appellate body. The MPIA should serve as a reminder to Washington that by continuing its wheeler-dealer activities, it will only invite more countermeasures from the rest of the world.

Of course, the appellate body needs reforms－especially, because its rules have remained unchanged since 1994, litigation usually takes more than 90 days, the upper limit, to process, and power politics often influence the election of arbitrators.

As the international community has agreed to build a rules-based global trade order, it should reform the WTO appellate body to prevent some countries from trying to unilaterally settle trade disputes. And it is hoped that the establishment of the arbitrators' panel will prompt the US to eventually help reform the WTO's appellate body.