Despite debuting to little fanfare under the General Agreement
on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), dispute settlement under the
World Trade Organization (WTO) has been called the “backbone
of the multilateral trading system.”1
Indeed, whereas
GATT dispute settlement could scarcely have seemed more
flawed,2
the WTO’s Dispute Settlement Understanding (DSU)
is widely touted for boosting confidence in an increasingly
rules-based global economy.