Members hope WTO dispute settlement reform text will ‘change the incentives’

GENEVA -- The dispute settlement talks at the World Trade Organization have, by WTO standards, spurred quick and pronounced progress, leading to a text that covers a wide range of concerns – from page counts and dispute length limits to accessibility and interpretation guidance for adjudicators – but does not yet have an answer for the $64,000 question about the fate of the system’s appeals stage. After years without a functional Appellate Body in Geneva, the pace and success of...