A number of recent WTO disputes have targeted increasingly important topics in domestic regulation – including consumer (product) standards, and other areas affecting human, animal, or plant health. These disputes can challenge these regulations, raising the question whether they may ultimately lead to mandates for reform. How does the WTO’s dispute settlement process work when it comes to disputes that center on domestic regulation? This executive training seminar (ETS) provided a soup-tonuts exploration of the law, economics, and politics of how WTO disputes are executed in practice. The three day seminar has provided an in-depth overview of the salient issues using the recent US-Country of Origin Labelling (COOL) case as a focal point. The COOL dispute involves industrialized and developing countries, billions of dollars in annual trade, supply chains, special interest politics, WTO authorization of retaliation totaling hundreds of millions of dollars, the existential threat of mad cow disease and a challenge to consumer protection regulation and the consumer’s “right to know.” The case illustrated the many issues and open questions that arose as for the global trading system as a result of differences in domestic regulation. This ETS was targeted at policymakers, practitioners and students of international economic law who have an interest in the operation of the multilateral trading system’s dispute settlement mechanism.

Scientific Coordinators: Bernard Hoekman | European University Institute, Petros Mavroidis | European University Institute, Chad Bown | Peterson Institute & European University Institute

Speakers

Chad P. Bown | Peterson Institute & European University Institute

Rachel Brewster | Duke Law

Bernard Hoekman | European University Institute

Petros Mavroidis | European University Institute

Niall Meagher | Advisory Centre on WTO Law

Greg Shaffer | University of California, Irvine Law

Jasper Wauters | King & Spalding’s International Trade Practice Group (tbc)

Programme