Introduction

Judicial economy is a ‘general canon’ of adjudication. For instance, the ICJ has confirmed that ‘it retains the freedom to select the ground upon which it will base its judgment, and is under no obligation to examine all of the considerations advanced by the Parties if other considerations appear to it to be sufficient for its purpose’. In The Development of International Law by the International Court, Lauterpacht touched on the related issues of ‘Judicial Limitation of the Scope of Decision’, ‘Judicial Caution and Economy of Expression’ and ‘Considerations of Economy in the Work of the Court’. Likewise, in The Development of International Law by the European Court of Human Rights, Merrills included a related discussion on the ‘Limitation of the scope of the decision’. These and other judicial techniques and concepts are captured in the concept of ‘judicial economy’, broadly defined. There is a substantial body of WTO jurisprudence relating to judicial economy.

This jurisprudence does not seem to be derived from any special features of the WTO dispute settlement system, and seems to relate instead to certain inherent aspects of the judicial function exercised by WTO adjudicators and other international courts and tribunals. This chapter reviews WTO pronouncements of wider applicability relating to three forms of judicial economy: (i) judicial economy in the strict sense of refraining from making findings on whether a given measure, having been found to violate one or more obligations, is also inconsistent with other obligations; (ii) judicial economy in a broader sense (including the use of arguendo assumptions to reject a claim or defence, leaving the precise boundaries of certain legal concepts undefined, declining to rule on issues rendered moot, and focusing on issues in dispute between the parties); and (iii) judicial economy with respect to procedural issues (e.g. early preliminary rulings and proceedings involving multiple complainants).