Divergence Across the Atlantic? US Skepticism Meets the EU and the WTO's Appellate Body

Abstract: In 2019, the Appellate Body (AB) of the World Trade Organization’s Dispute Settlement System (WTO-DSS) lost its quorum. Instead of the required minimum number of three members, the AB’s membership fell to one member only as the US under Donald Trump blocked the appointment of new members upon the expiry of the terms of two incumbent ones. The AB's paralysis produced a high level of shock in the EU. In this article, we take a closer look at the US's decision to paralyze the WTO's AB and the EU's reaction to it. Its point is that it will not be easy to get the US back on board as the factors that drove its decision predate the Trump era. Long before Trump, the tradeoff upon which the US based its acceptance of the WTO-DSS unraveled. For US policy makers, the EU is partly to blame for this as it undermined the system's prompt compliance assumption. More important even is the claim that the system's AB created new obligations for the WTO members to the point where the acceptance of som

Object Details

• Location: Deutsche Nationalbibliothek Frankfurt am Main
• Extent: Online-Ressource
• Language: Englisch
• Notes: Veröffentlichungsversion ; begutachtet (peer reviewed) ; In: Politics and Governance ; 10 (2022) 2 ; 208-218

Classification and Topics

• Classification: Recht

Contributors, Places and Time

• Event: Veröffentlichung
• (where): Mannheim
• (who): SSOAR, GESIS – Leibniz-Institut für Sozialwissenschaften e.V.
• (when): 2022
• Creator: Kerremans, Bart

Further information

• DOI: 10.17645/pag.v10i2.4983
• URN: urn:nbn:de:101:1-2023081614083286988883
• Rights: Open Access; Der Zugriff auf das Objekt ist unbeschränkt möglich.
• Last update: 14.08.2025, 10:49 AM CEST