PARIS - Global finance chiefs meeting in France have warned that the World Trade Organization's internal court risks becoming paralyzed by bitter disputes between member states.
If no judges are approved by year's end, the appellate branch will not have the quorum required to hear cases. It was quickly accompanied by a global trade deal, which evolved in the 1990s into the WTO, an institution which is supposed to be both the forum for negotiating further global trade agreements and to enforce those in place.
"If we have no rules, everybody can do whatever he wants and this would be very bad, at least for developing countries," she warned. "Any new case brought to the WTO now probably could never be appealed, in which case everybody could do what they want," she warned as the US and China are engaged in a trade war launched by Trump, who has accused the WTO of going too easy on China to the detriment of US business.One example came on cue Tuesday as the WTO found in favor of Beijing regarding a seven-year anti-dumping dispute, prompting a stern US response accusing China of market distortion.