To preserve the
functioning of WTO dispute settlement following the blockage of the Appellate
Body, a sub-set of WTO Members created the Multi-Party Interim Appeal
Arbitration Arrangement (MPIA). In the wake of the first appeal award rendered
under the MPIA, this contribution describes how the MPIA process works and
lists some of the innovations that can be found in the first MPIA procedure.
More innovations can be expected as arbitration under Article 25 of the Dispute
Settlement Understanding (DSU) (be it ad hoc or under the MPIA) can be adjusted
and molded case-by-case by the disputing parties in their appeal arbitration
agreements. In this sense, the MPIA can serve not only as an interim stop-gap
to preserve WTO dispute settlement. It can also function as a laboratory to
explore and test new ways of making WTO dispute settlement more efficient and
in line with WTO Members' goals and interests: experimental reform by doing,
rather than one-off, formal DSU review.
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