There was another WTO Dispute Settlement Body (“DSB”) meeting on November 22, 2019. In addition to the normal agenda item of receiving reports and comments by other members on the status of implementation of recommendations on disputes where reports had previously been adopted by the DSB, there were a number of other agenda items, one of which was not addressed.

First, the United States had put on the agenda making a statement on what it considers systemic concerns on the compensation for Appellate Body.

Second, annually each body within the WTO prepared a report on activity during the year. Adoption of the 2019 draft annual report of the DSB was an agenda item for consideration.

Third, the topic of Appellate Body appointments was an agenda item based on the September 2019 proposal from 117 WTO members.

Finally, there was an agenda item entitled “Pending Appeals” which was meant to permit an examination of how the 13 pending appeals would be handled after December 10 when the number of current Appellate Body members would decline to 1 from 3.

This note looks at several of the agenda items with a focus towards the end on the thirteen appeals which are proceeding at the present time.

I. Compensation for Appellate Body members

As reviewed in a post from November 16, the United States had raised a series of questions on the handling of funds for the Appellate Body and its Secretariat (among other issues) and held up adoption of the 2020/2021 WTO budget at a November 12 meeting of the Committee on the Budget, Finance and Administration. Another meeting of the Committee has been scheduled for November 27, with efforts to provide answers and resolve concerns ahead of that meeting.

At the same time, the U.S. added the agenda item to provide its thoughts on “systemic issues” flowing from the Appellate Body compensation system. The comments on this agenda item were made by Ambassador Dennis Shea and laid out the various elements of the compensation package, the part time nature of the work of Appellate Body members, and the fact that compensation has been paid to individuals whose terms have expired but who continue to handle appeals. See pages 9-12 of Statements b the United States at the Meeting of the WTO Dispute Settlement Body, Geneva, November 22, 2019, https://geneva.usmission.gov/wp-content/uploads/sites/290/Nov22.DSB_.Stmt_.as-handed-out.fin_.public.pdf. U.S. concerns revolved around: (1) the total compensation (some 300,000 Swiss Francs tax free for part time work which is higher than compensation for Deputy Director Generals at the WTO whose work is full time; (2) whether the daily component of compensation contributed to delay in completing Appellate Body decisions, hence undermining prompt resolution of disputes; (3) lack of transparency on expenses; and (4) pay to former members who are continued after terms expire when working on appeals which they started prior to term expiration.

Press reports from the day of the DSB meeting indicated relatively little interest/sympathy by other trading partners on the U.S. concerns including on the size of the compensation. See, e.g., Inside U.S. Trade’s World Trade Online, U.S. Questions WTO Appellate Body compensation as others lament impending paralysis, https://insidetrade.com/daily-news/us-questions-wto-appellate-body-compensation-others-lament-impending-paralysis.

From the earlier U.S. statement of concerns on how to remedy the Appellate Body disregard of clear requirements under the Dispute Settlement Understanding, the U.S. statement provides a potential “why” answer to part of the disregard. Failing to meet the required 60-90 day deadline for appeals results in longer work on any given appeal and hence higher compensation, potentially encouraging longer decisions, coverage of additional issues, etc. and making timely delivery of AB decisions more difficult.

Should the U.S. insist that the AB compensation system be reviewed and potentially modified before agreeing to opening the Appellate Body nomination process, obviously a protracted and difficult process will become more complicated and presumably more drawn out.

II. Appellate Body Proposal to Start the Appointment Process

Not surprisingly, the same proposal to start the process of finding new Appellate Body members that had been presented in October by Mexico and 116 other WTO members was resubmitted for consideration at the November 22 DSB meeting. Once again the U.S. found itself unable to agree to moving ahead with the process for finding six Appellate Body members to fill the existing vacancies and the two that will occur when existing terms expire on December 10. So there is actually nothing new on this agenda item or the outcome at the recent DSB meeting.

Ambassador David Walker’s draft General Council Decision which is an effort to present a possible road forward to addressing U.S. concerns was not taken up within the DSB (other than a review of the effort at resolution contained in the draft annual report of the DSB) but will be on the agenda for the December 9-11 General Council meeting. As reviewed in an earlier post, the U.S. has already rejected the draft General Council Decision as not meeting its concerns. Thus, the General Council meeting in December is not likely to provide a breakthrough on the current impasse. So an obvious question is what happens on December 11?

The panel process of dispute settlement will continue as before. Thus, for the many cases proceeding through panel deliberations, one can expect those panels to continue without interruption. WTO Members have the option of agreeing to arbitration under Article 25 of the DSU, as the EU has done with Canada and with Norway. Similarly, WTO Members can agree not to take an appeal in a given dispute such that the panel report would be what is adopted absent a negative consensus. It is understood that some WTO members are considering this or have agreed to this approach. Thus, December 11 marks not the collapse of the dispute settlement system in its entirety, but rather a need to evaluate options for WTO members as they look at pending or future disputes or face a process where there is no automatic adoption.

A large number of WTO Members have participated in at least one dispute in the first 25 years of the WTO. Other WTO members, who have not been a complainant or a respondent have participated as a third party in one or more cases. While that is true, the number of cases where a Member is either a complainant or a respondent is very small for nearly all countries. The attached table looks at information from the WTO Dispute Settlement listing (looked at on November 22, but not reflecting the EU request for consultations filed against Indonesia on November 22). Six Members (U.S. (11.16/yr), EU and member states (9.44/yr), China (3.61/yr), Canada (2.52/yr), Russian Federation (2.42/year), and India (2.24/yr)) have seen two or more disputes filed each year of membership. Eight others have between one and two disputes each year (Brazil, Argentina, Japan, Mexico, Korea, Ukraine, Australia, and Indonesia). Everyone else (121 members) have less than one dispute per year including 81 who have never either filed a dispute or been a respondent in a dispute in the first twenty-five years of the WTO and 46 of whom have also never been a third party in a dispute.

WTO-Member

The EU’s agreements with Canada and Norway are important for Canada and Norway but relatively minor for the EU itself, other than creating what they hope will be an approach that other trading partners of theirs will agree to. For Canada, 23.81% of the disputes where Canada has been a complainant or respondent have been where the EU was the other party. For Norway, 3 of 5 cases they have been involved in have been with the EU (60%). However, for the EU, Canada and Norway represent less than 6% of the disputes in which they have been a party.

So how disruptive the reduction in Appellate Body membership to one member as of December 11, 2019 will be is uncertain and will depend on actions by a number of major players in terms of ongoing disputes..

III. Pending Appeals Before the Appellate Body

Agenda item 7 on the November 22, 2019 DSB meeting was “Pending Appeals. A. Statement by the Chairman.” WTO/AIR/DSB/89.

In the Dispute Settlement Body’s draft Annual Report (2019), the following brief discussion appears on what the Chair of the DSB was doing on the issue of pending appeals. WT/DSB/W/651 (8 November 2019) at 4:

” Finally, he said that he would be consulting with delegations who had pending appeals before the Appellate Body ahead of 10 December 2019 to see how to deal with those appeals. He said that he would revert to this matter at the November DSB meeting (WT/DSB/M/436).”

While the WTO does not have a summary of the November 22nd DSB meeting up on its webcite as of 11/24 2:30 p.m. (ET), a press article from the 22nd indicated that the agenda item wasn’t pursued as the Chair had not found agreement on how to deal with the 13 pending appeals. The U.S. was apparently the holdout in reaching agreement on how to proceed. Inside U.S. Trade’s World Trade Online, U.S. Questions WTO Appellate Body compensation as others lament impending paralysis, https://insidetrade.com/daily-news/us-questions-wto-appellate-body-compensation-others-lament-impending-paralysis.

In looking at the thirteen appeals that are understood to be underway and the relevant DSU articles on Appellate Body practice rules, there appear to be a number of potential issues that will need to be addressable if the issues are in fact present and the appeals are to proceed.

First, eight of the thirteen appeals were noticed by the appellant after 30 September 2018 the last day of Mr. Shree Baboo Chekitan Servansing’s four year term. See DS541, DS534, DS523, DS518, DS513, DS510, DS461, DS371. After that date, there have been only three Appellate Body members, all of whom would have to be hearing the appeal and no substitute would be possible if one of the two members whose terms end on December 10, 2019 decided not to continue on an appeal after that date. See DSU Art. 17.1; Working Procedures for Appellate Review, WT/AB/WP/6 16 August 2010, Rules 6.(3) and 12 and 13. It is understood that one of the two Appellate Body members whose second term expires on December 10 has indicated an unwillingness to continue to serve on the appeals after the expiration of his term. If correct, absent a decision by the DSB on how those appeals can proceed, the appeals will presumably terminate or be in a state of limbo pending restoration of the membership of the Appellate Body. The United States is a party in four of the eight cases.

Of the other five appeals, it is unclear if a similar situation exists in terms of the composition of the Division hearing the appeal (DSU Art. 17.1 has appeals heard on a rotation basis) and if so, if the remaining AB member would be available to maintain the appeal at three members (two former members and the remaining current member).

For all thirteen appeals, after December 10, 2019, the appeals could only be handled in two or all three of the people hearing the appeal were individuals whose terms expired, hence falling into the space that the U.S. has reviewed as to the lack of authority for the Appellate Body have non-AB members complete appeals that were started when they were members. The U.S. is a party in five of the thirteen pending appeals.

Expect that the DSB Chair David Walker will continue to search for an approach that is acceptable to all members. Don’t be surprised if no consensus is reached. Two known events in December are possible situations where better understanding of the issues will surface: the December 9-11 General Council and the December 18 DSB meeting.

Below is a reverse chronological listing of the thirteen pending appeals:

DS541, India-Export Related Measures (U.S. complainant); notice of appeal, Nov. 19, 2019.

DS534, United States – Anti-Dumping Measures Applying Differential Pricing Methodology to Softwood Lumber from Canada; notice of appeal, June 4, 2019.

DS523, United States – Countervailing Measures on Certain Pipe and Tube Products (Turkey complainant); notice of appeal, Jan. 25, 2019.

DS518, India – Certain Measures on Imports of Iron and Steel Products (Japan complainant); notice of appeal, Dec. 14, 2018.

DS513, Morocco – Anti-Dumping Measures on Certain Hot-Rolled Steel from Turkey; notice of appeal, November 20, 2018

DS510, United States – Certain Measures Relating to the Renewable Energy Sector (India complainant); notice of appeal, August 15, 2019.

DS505, United States – Countervailing Measures on Supercalendered Paper from Canada; notice of appeal, August 27, 2018.

DS499, Russian Federation – Measures Affecting the Importation of Railway Equipment and Parts Thereof (Ukraine complainant); notice of appeal, August 27, 2018.

DS476, European Union – Certain Measures Relating to the Energy Sector (Russian Federation complainant); notice of appeal, September 21, 2018 [The WTO webpage shows this dispute still being on appeal before the Appellate Body, but the case is not included in the list of 13 pending appeals on the WTO webpage] .

DS441, Australia – Certain Measures Concerning Trademarks, Geographical Indicators and Other Plain Packaging Requirements Applicable to Tobacco Products (Dominican Republic complainant); notice of appeal, August 23, 2018.

DS435, Australia – Certain Measures Concerning Trademarks, Geographical Indicators and Other Plain Packaging Requirements Applicable to Tobacco Products (Honduars complainant); notice of appeal, July 19, 2018.

DS461, Colombia – Measures Relating to the Importation of Textiles, Apparel and Footwear (21.5, Panama complainant); notice of appeal, November 20, 2018.

DS371, Thailand – Custom and Fiscal Measures on Cigarettes from the Philippines; notice of appeal (2nd recourse to 21.5), September 9, 2019; notice appeal (1st recourse to 21.5), 9 January, 2019).

IV. Conclusion

WTO Members are continuing to look for alternatives to the present appeal process as they await further developments both at the General Council and the Dispute Settlement Body. The U.S. has been looking for adherence to the original DSU commitments and is unwilling to accept simple reaffirmation of those principles in light of the longstanding problems flagged by the United States. The core disagreement on the purpose of the dispute settlement system between the U.S. and the EU (and like minded Members) has made meaningful progress difficult.

What is certain is that the brave new world of a more complicated dispute settlement system within the WTO arrives in less than three weeks. How long the changed status will continue is unclear. Current indications are the wait will be long in fact before the Appellate Body is back functioning with the concerns of the U.S. at last addressed in an enforceable manner. For the U.S. a major concern should be achieving a restoration of the rights and obligations that were agreed to through negotiation and that have been lost through overreach actions by the Appellate Body.