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The appellate body deadlock at the WTO : an analysis of alternative ad hoc arbitral tribunals under Article 25 DSU in form of the plurilateral MPIA (2020)

Wieseler, A.M. (2021) The appellate body deadlock at the WTO : an analysis of alternative ad hoc arbitral tribunals under Article 25 DSU in form of the plurilateral MPIA (2020).

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Abstract:The World Trade Organization (WTO) fulfils three mandates: multilateral negotiations, dispute settlement, and monitoring. Following the stalemate of the Doha Development Round (2001-2015), multilateral trade negotiations came to a halt. This also impacts the dispute settlement pillar. In December 2019, the Appellate Body (AB) as supreme instance of WTO jurisdiction, became deadlocked following a US refusal to consent to the appointment of AB members. To circumvent this unpredictability, so far 51 of the 164 WTO members have joined the EU-initiated ‘Multi-Party Interim Appeal Arbitration Arrangement’ (MPIA) providing a two-step legal structure similar to the blocked AB. The thesis investigates the decision of the US not to join and China to join the MPIA based on the respective trade strategies from 2017 to 2021. The theoretical framework of Institutional Realism by Keohane (1984) accounts for a member-driven WTO in a post-hegemonic institutional setting and thereby bridges two strands of existing research. While the AB deadlock is commonly either explained with a general WTO governance crisis or the blocking behaviour of the US, the thesis combines both under the concepts of hegemony, harmony, cooperation, and discord.
Item Type:Essay (Master)
Faculty:BMS: Behavioural, Management and Social Sciences
Subject:89 political science
Programme:European Studies MSc (69303)
Link to this item:https://purl.utwente.nl/essays/88211
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