Dispute settlement in the World Trade Organization : practice and procedure.

Dispute settlement has a hidden side. While academics have explored the `philosophy' of the World Trade Organization (WTO), no attempt has been made to examine it from a practical standpoint. Like most international regimes, the WTO has not paid particular attention to its procedural aspects. Dispute Settlement in the World Trade Organization is the first book to remove the mystery from the WTO's complex procedural law and to make it accessible for practitioners. Through a careful examination of actual practice, including their own experience, the expert authors reveal this hidden, yet crucial side of dispute settlement. Dispute Settlement in the World Trade Organization guides the practitioner from the very initial stages of the proceeding through to its completion. No other work does this. Its useful features include + appendices containing the texts of the applicable agreements (most notably the WTO Understanding on Rules and Procedures Governing the Settlement of Disputes, dispute settlement provisions of all other WTO agreements, applicable GATT instruments, and the relevant articles of the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties); + footnotes to relevant WTO and secondary sources; + organizational charts of the WTO, the dispute settlement process and procedures before the Textile Monitoring Body; + indexes; and + tables and charts of all cases since January 1, 1995. The authors of Dispute Settlement in the World Trade Organization are a former official of the Legal Affairs Division of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) and the WTO who has advised and assisted numerous panels, and a private practitioner who has counselled and represented governments and private clients with an interest in the outcomes of WTO and GATT dispute settlement proceedings. Their hands-on guide addresses all of the procedural questions that they actually confronted in the world of dispute settlement. Efficient, lucid, and up-to-date -- nothing else comes close to the practicality of Dispute Settlement in the World Trade Organization. For these reasons, Dispute Settlement in the World Trade Organization is an essential resource for practitioners (those who prepare and present cases to dispute settlement of the WTO and its Appellate Body and those who advise or represent governments and private clients with an interest in the outcomes), diplomats, government lawyers, universities, trade delegates, political scientists, and academics studying international trade or examining dispute settlement from a comparative standpoint.

In this extensively revised new edition of Palmeter and Mavroidis' authoritative book on WTO dispute settlement, the authors discuss all WTO dispute settlement provisions and their interpretation in WTO jurisprudence. Although the book contains considerable technical expertise, it is carefully written for accessibility to a wide readership. An essential volume for practitioners, diplomats and government lawyers, this is the only comprehensive system of compulsory third party adjudication in international law. Appendices contain the texts of the agreements and the provisions of other WTO agreements relevant to dispute settlement.