India calls for starting formal negotiations by WTO members to reform dispute settlement body

31 Oct 2023 Evaluate

India has called for starting formal negotiations by WTO members to reform the dispute settlement body of the World Trade Organisation, as the present informal deliberations are creating hindrance for several nations to participate in the talks. The formal talks on the subject can help in arriving at some kind of consensus by the 13th ministerial conference (MC), the highest decision making body of the WTO, in Abu Dhabi in February 2024. The issue came up for discussion during a recent meeting of senior officials of WTO members in Geneva last week. Certain countries flagged their concerns on the informal system of talks.

India stated that ‘if you want to maintain the WTO's credibility, we need to talk on this’. WTO's dispute settlement body (DSB) is one of the important arms of the 164-member Geneva-based body. Besides monitoring global exports and imports related rules, it adjudicates trade disputes between the member countries. The US has started engaging in DSB reforms, but in an informal setting. In this setting, not all members get the opportunity to talk. There are no interpretation facilities in those informal meetings.

Many WTO member countries have one or two delegates only in Geneva. So, they get busy in different meetings like general council and because of that, they are not able to participate in the deliberations on DSB reforms. So, there are some concerns. It was flagged in the break-away sessions' meeting in Geneva recently. Normally in the WTO, talks through a formal process involves submissions of papers on the subject for discussions among all the members. The way the US is engaging on the subject, it looks like they will do something like coming up with some formal text for discussion on the issue.