Appellate Body

The WTOAB was established in 1995 under Article 17 of the Understanding on Rules and Procedures Governing the Settlement of Disputes (DSU).“A standing Appellate Body shall be established by the DSB. The Appellate Body shall hear appeals from panel cases. It shall be composed of seven persons, three of whom shall serve on any one case. Persons serving on the Appellate Body shall serve in rotation. Such rotation shall be determined in the working procedures of the Appellate Body.” Blocking of adjudicator appointments In the 2010s, the United States began expressing opposition to the WTO and its Appellate Body. The Barack Obama administration began to veto new appointments to the body in 2016. However, all the appointments of judges that were initially blocked by the Obama administration were eventually filled. The permanent blocking of the appointments started with the first Trump administration and were continued by the Biden administration. When Donald Trump became president, he complained that the WTO was "biased against the US" and threatened to pull the U.S. out. The U.S. complained that China was too rich to continue receiving exemptions meant for developing countries, and believed the WTO's law enforcement was crippling the U.S. while enabling China's growth as a mercantilist superpower. As Appellate Body members' terms continued to expire, the U.S. refused to approve any new appointments. The WTO dispute settlement mechanism has been paralyzed since. As of April 2025, the WTO reported that 32 dispute panel rulings had been "appealed into the void", including 2 filed by the United States and 11 filed against it. Multiparty Interim Appeal Arbitration In March 2020, the European Union and 15 other WTO members agreed to a Multiparty Interim Appeal Arbitration Arrangement (MPIA). This gave access to an alternative appellate mechanism (arbitration as an appellate mechanism) while the Appellate Body is not functional. Its provisions mirror the usual WTO appeal rules and can be voluntarily used between any WTO members to resolve disputes. The European Commissioner for Trade Phil Hogan said: "This is a stop-gap measure to reflect the temporary paralysis of the WTO's appeal function for trade disputes ... We will continue our efforts to restore the appeal function of the WTO dispute settlement system as a matter of priority." As of August 2023, the MPIA consisted of just 27 out of the 164 WTO members and had issued two rulings. A pool of ten arbitrators were announced on 31 July 2020 marking the operational start of the MPIA. The arbitrators appointed were José Alfredo Graça Lima (Brazil) Valerie Hughes (Canada), Alejandro Jara (Chile), Guohua Yang (China), Claudia Orozco (Colombia), Joost Pauwelyn (EU), Mateo Diego-Fernandez Andrade (Mexico), Penelope Ridings (New Zealand), Locknie Hsu (Singapore), and Thomas Cottier (Switzerland). == Members ==