This chapter evaluates the emergence and development of “surveillance” as the preferred non-compliance mechanism within the IMF architecture. This is thanks to its broad flexibility and original mechanism. The nature and scope of surveillance, as well as the factors explaining its success, will be assessed. In contrast, alternative dispute settlement mechanisms, such as international courts, have been resorted to in a limited way. This chapter will therefore highlight the specific role of international law within the field of international monetary relations, as well as illustrating how international monetary relations provide international law with original new tools and concepts.

Much ink in international law scholarship has been spilled on questions of institutional design surrounding dispute settlement. Commentators over the last forty years have praised the concept of third-party dispute settlement as a great achievement in our sovereigntist discipline. These are typically State-to-State mechanisms, although not exclusively so. When we consider “compliance” in international law, most questions of design concentrate on these institutions in which one State maintains that another has violated the latter’s commitments. Today, however, the targets of international legal obligations are changing, and with them the concept of compliance. This chapter assesses trade non-compliance mechanisms (NCMs) and argues that they exhibit significant potential for expansive reach while also suffering shortcomings. The chapter closes by mapping these normative evaluations onto conventional compliance theories to draw conclusions about those theories’ resilience and flexibility before making recommendations both for trade law and international law more generally.

In this chapter, Malgosia Fitzmaurice examines the procedures and mechanisms for the peaceful settlement of environmental disputes. This chapter deals with the issue of classical settlement of environmental disputes and the relatively new and still-evolving phenomenon of so-called non-compliance procedures, which are an element of the legal structure of Multilateral Environmental Agreements and administered by the Conferences of the Parties/Meetings of the Parties. This chapter explores the legitimacy of these procedures and focuses in particular on the question of State consent. It explains that, while classical means of dispute settlement do not present questions of legitimacy, their inherent bilateralism is ill-suited for the protection of the environment. Non-compliance procedures may be a more effective tool in light of their multilateral nature, and recent trends based on co-operative efforts may eliminate, to some degree, questions of legitimacy.

In this chapter, Nicholas Tsagourias and Fiona Middleton examine the role of fact-finding in ascertaining the facts supporting cyber attribution claims. More specifically, it considers the modalities of fact-finding, discusses the challenges it is encountering in the context of cyber attribution, and assesses the proposed cyber attribution mechanisms. The chapter concludes by identifying certain key features a cyber attribution fact-finding mechanism should exhibit to perform its tasks effectively and contribute to the settlement of cyber attribution disputes.

In this chapter, Aris Georgopoulos and Petros Mavroidis examine the contribution of the WTO dispute settlement body to the resolution of trade disputes. This chapter documents the problems and challenges faced by the WTO’s dispute settlement body and reveals their debilitating impact on its work. This chapter then puts forward concrete proposals for the establishment of a new WTO Court and explains why such a course of action has a realistic chance of breaking the current impasse and creating an effective dispute settlement body for trade disputes.

In this chapter, James Mehigan focuses on the contribution of international criminal law (ICL) to the peaceful settlement of international disputes. More specifically, this chapter looks at the aims of ICL and analyses how effective it has been at achieving its international law and criminal law objectives. It argues that ICL does not make the broader contribution to dispute settlement that many commentators hope for because it provides a form of retributive justice that does not necessarily engender a sense of justice for victims, nor contribute to reconciliation or fact-finding. After looking at the impact of ICL in the Former Yugoslavia, this chapter concludes that there is little evidence to show that ICL achieves any of its aims other than individualising guilt and punishing offenders – in other words, ICL’s contribution to the settlement of international disputes is minimal and should not be overstated.

The author assesses the role of consent in processes of binding dispute resolution before international courts and tribunals. He seeks to demonstrate that ‘consent’ has a particular role in binding dispute resolution. This particular role derives from the special nature of binding dispute resolution processes. They are intrusive and characterized by their uncertain outcome: the implications of State consent to the dispute resolution process crucially depend on decisions of an independent entity, namely an international court or tribunal. Because this is so, States insist on the need for consent, as a precondition of any binding dispute resolution process. At the same time, once consent has been given, control shifts to the competent international court or tribunal. Moreover, by virtue of their decision-making authority, many international courts and tribunals have managed to assert at least a persuasive influence over proper construction of the legal rules at stake, extending beyond the cases immediately pending before them. The chapter traces these peculiarities and examines how the tension between State and courts’ authority plays out in particular disputes.

This chapter describes why the World Trade Organization (WTO) has proven such a great challenge for the representation of women and women’s interests. Some progress has been made since the Aid-for-Trade programme, which cooperates with the WTO, incorporated gender mainstreaming in 2011. This includes the adoption of the 2017 Joint Declaration on Trade and Women’s Economic Empowerment and the inauguration of the WTO Gender Research Hub in 2021. Nevertheless, to date the WTO has lagged behind other international organizations, including organizations of global economic governance, in representing women and their interests. The chapter posits the following reasons in historical context: (i) Women did not ‘get in on the ground floor’ at the WTO; (ii) The locus of power at the WTO rests with the members (exemplified by the requirement for consensus and the ’single undertaking’, the importance of member proposals, and the institutional weakness of the Secretariat); (iii) The relative lateness and weakness of WTO involvement with civil society, compared to other institutions of global economic governance; (iv) The formative clashes during the 1980s and 1990s between gender and trade activism and trade liberalization; (v) The lex specialis nature of the WTO dispute settlement system; (vi) The WTO is primarily a ‘hard-law’ institution.

To reflect on China’s 20 years in the World Trade Organization (WTO), this chapter offers an overview and some critical analysis of China’s implementation of the rulings of the WTO’s dispute settlement system (DSS). It shows that China has maintained an impressive record of compliance, which is clear proof of the effectiveness of the DSS. Specifically, the DSS has caused not only changes to specific policy instruments but also systematic adjustments of China’s complex regulatory regime in an incremental manner. This chapter then examines three systemic challenges for the DSS – i.e. temporary breaches, repetitive breaches and post-compliance regulatory developments – while contending that they are not specific to China but apply to all WTO Members. It ends by offering some observations on the growing debate over the broader issues relating to China’s economic model and compliance with the spirit of WTO rules. While these issues remain controversial, a functional DSS is urgently needed to maintain its impact on China. Otherwise, countries that are keen to push China to further economic reforms will lose an important policy option (i.e. multilateral disciplines) while other approaches (i.e. unilateral measures) have proven less effective or even counter-productive in dealing with the rising global superpower.

China, the EU and the United States are the world’s largest traders, and many of the tensions in the trading system arise in the relations among them. Our premise is that reforming WTO is a necessary condition for the organization to be a more salient forum for the three large economies to address trade tensions, and that agreement among these three trade powers in turn is necessary to resolve the problems of the WTO. After a brief discussion of the global challenges that ought to be on the WTO agenda and of the systemic context, we discuss both how China understands WTO reform and how the other two leading powers see the China problem in the WTO. We consider how the three see transparency, plurilateral negotiations, economic development differences, fisheries and industrial subsidies, WTO working practices, and dispute settlement. We conclude by considering the implications of our analysis for fostering cooperation between the three major trade powers in the WTO.

China’s rapid rise as a leading global exporter of manufacturing goods since its accession to the WTO in 2001 has been the focus of both admiration and, increasingly, concern, but China is also a large importer of goods, particularly agricultural products. Since China’s accession to the WTO, Chinese agricultural exports have increased by 8 per cent annually while imports have risen by almost twice that rate. China has become the world’s largest importer of agricultural products and the first or second largest destination for many of the world’s top agricultural exporters such as the United States, Brazil, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, and Argentina. This paper examines the evolution of China’s agricultural trade since accession and discusses how agricultural trade policy and domestic support policies have evolved, particularly emphasizing China’s experience as a complainant and a respondent in WTO trade disputes.

In light of growing geopolitical tensions between China and the West, the chapter focuses on areas of persistently shared interests and common concerns of humankind. Climate change, the protection of biodiversity and pandemics cannot be addressed in isolation but require common efforts and international cooperation in the dissemination of technologies and knowledge, despite ideological differences. The paper stresses the importance of existing WTO law and sets a trade-related agenda for these areas. Finally, it submits that a future principle of Common Concern of Humankind offers guidance in finding common ground for multilateral negotiations on trade, competition and investment in the WTO. It is capable of protecting the interests of a global community increasingly caught in big-power rivalry.

The Dispute Settlement Understanding (DSU) was one of the chief results of the Uruguay Round. Dispute settlement under the GATT had not been binding. Adoption of panel reports could be, and too often was, blocked by the losing party. All of the major trading members wanted dispute settlement to be binding, to have definitive results. They carefully constructed a complex system to remedy past defects. It had internal inconsistencies that only became apparent over time.

Inadequate consideration was given by the founders of the WTO to the institutions that would be needed to govern the rules-based trading system that they were seeking to create. This chapter introduces a WTO Reform Quartet, proposals for WTO reform to make the rule-making, adjudication, and executive functions of the WTO more effective, including providing for the gathering of trade intelligence.