Comments on Chapter-10 | Is WTO Dispute Settlement Effective? Written by - Keisuke Iida Book: The Politics of Global Governance Edited by Paul F Diehl & Brain Frederking. | Khaleda AKHTAR, Public Policy Program, Graduate School of Governance Studies, Meiji University. |

Prelude: In the massive protests in Seattle in 1999, more than 5000 protesters took part on issues of environment and exploitation of child labor in third world. It was an anti-globalization movement. World Trade Organization (WTO) became one of the most controversial institutions as evidenced by the massive protests in Seattle, Washington in November, 1999. Both the critics and supporters of WTO seem to believe that it is a highly
This turned bad U.S.-EU relations. The subsequent case brought by the EU against the US over foreign sales corporations, is widely reputed to have been a counter case. A related question with regard is whether or not the WTO has restrained the outbreak of trade wars. In the banana cases, Ecuador also joined the retaliation, and in the beef hormones, Canada joined. If one includes these cases as trade wars, the WTO has certainly not stopped trade wars. In each case WTO appointed an arbitrator to determine the size of countermeasures. * Article IX of the WTO Charter allows the members by a three-quarters majority of the entire membership to make a definite interpretation which would indeed be binding. But because it rarely happens that representatives of three-quarters of the WTO membership are together in a room, a binding interpretation is not likely arise. * The two paragraphs in Article XX which are of particular relevance with respect to the discussion of process and production methods (PPMs) are (b) and (g) on health and conservation respectively. One of the most important areas of debate for possible further negotiation at the WTO is the issue of PPMs. It refers to the desire of some countries to regulate international trade in goods and services on the basis of the inputs and process technologies utilised in their production. Many developing countries are deeply suspicious of proposals for the explicit inclusion of PPMs in the WTO. The reason for