TITLE:
Judicial Activism in the World Trade Organization: A Conundrum and Selective Approach
AUTHORS:
Kiyoung Kim
KEYWORDS:
WTO, Appellate Body, Judicial Activism, Rule of Law, Judge-Made Law, Dispute Settlement Mechanism
JOURNAL NAME:
Beijing Law Review,
Vol.11 No.4,
December
4,
2020
ABSTRACT: With the establishment of the World Trade Organization in 1995, the dispute settlement mechanism for international trade was greatly prepared unlike the old GATT system. It has a very different pattern from that of original GATT system. In our case, international trade is a matter of the future of nations, and in reality of the intense world economic competition, this system change may well be of concern to our government or legal experts. In this context, this paper examines the nature and problems of the WTO appeal system under the premise of the rule of law, judicial prowess, and the role of a judge. The WTO dispute settlement mechanism is based on the domestic judicial system or other international judicial systems. In contrast to this, the comparative history is only short indeed, but according to the accumulation of future precedents, it is highly possible to provide a model for the achievement of the rule of law ideals in the international community. However, due to the inherent limitations of international agreement system, the reality of appellate body is not easy. In terms of the international trade andrule of law, the role of appellate body and judgesisvery broad. However, in this paper, we first look at the significance and nature of the launch of WTO and furthermore;1) the rule of law and judicial system,2) several issues related to thenature of WTO dispute settlement mechanism,3) the importance of judge-made lawandthe scope and limitations of appellate jurisdiction,4) issuesof reference materials submitted by procedures outside the process,5)the relationship between the appellate body and political authorities. Over the review, the penetrating thoughts will be focusedonjudicial activism. Those points of consideration will be discussed through the approach and method on the comparative legal studies and several significant WTO precedents.