WTO Dispute Settlements and Members' Legal Capacity - Dissertation Example

By removing economic and trade barriers, the contemporary period has given rise to a global market that has flattened the world (Friedman, 2010). WTO is the international economic organization, which is deemed, by some, as the organization that can provide the venue for member States as they address issues with other States pertinent to trade concerns (Soros, 2002). In fact, WTO is hailed as the ‘rule of law’ in international economic trade. In this regard, WTO opens the opportunity for the power of might to end and the rule of law to prevail in international economic trade (Shaffer, 2009).

This view is attached to WTO because WTO is the plane or the platform where governments enter into trade negotiations with other countries. It lays down the legal framework with which trading transactions among countries are grounded and when trading conflicts ensues between countries, WTO helps settle the dispute (Understanding WTO, 2010). WTO Dispute Settlement is a unique mechanism that allows member States to resolve trade disputes through judicial system (Sattler & Berneur, 2010). However, despite the promise of the rule of law through this legal mechanism, it has been observed that there is a disparity in terms of availing this legal recourse between developed countries and developing countries (Bohl, 2009; Busch, Reinhard & Shaffer, 2009; Sattler & Berneur, 2010).

As such, this research will look into WTO Dispute Settlement and members’ legal capacity. Background of the Study On January1, 1995, World Trade Organization (WTO) came into being. It replaced the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT). This changed was a considered as a welcome modification on the supposition that GATT was an international agreement, which was primarily not created in becoming an international organization, but was to remain as an agreement among nations (Hamid & Sein, 2006).

On the other hand, the WTO is an international organization. The Agreement Establishing the World Trade Organization (the WTO Agreement) created the WTO as a full-fledged international organization with a legal personality, legal capacity, and privileges and immunities (Article III 1 – 5). An international or