Digital Commons Network^™

Saving The Wto From The Risk Of Irrelevance: The Wto Dispute Settlement Mechanism As A ‘Common Good’ For Rta Disputes, Henry Gao, Chin Leng Lim

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

Over the past few decades, Regional Trade Agreements (RTAs) have proliferated globally. Such proliferation of RTAs created a renewed sense of urgency for the WTO to take action in order to avoid the fate of being eclipsed into irrelevance. There are several options for coping with the challenge. Theoretically speaking, the best approach would be to heighten the level of ambition in global trade talks to reduce all trade barriers to zero so that the discriminatory effect created by RTAs could be reduced or even eliminated. In reality, such an approach would be impossible for well-known reasons. The next best …