In this report, the Appellate Body clarified the ‘elements that a panel

and eventually the Appellate Body would need to examine to ascertain the meaning of
municipal law, noting that these will vary from case to case’.415
Whereas in some cases the text of the relevant legislation may suffice to clarify the scope and
meaning of the relevant legal instruments, the Appellate Body considered that, in other cases,
the complainant will also need to support its understanding of the scope and meaning of such
legal instruments with ‘evidence of the consistent application of such laws, the
pronouncements of domestic courts on the meaning of such laws, the opinions of legal
experts and the writings of recognized scholars’.416
The Appellate Body further held that:
An assessment of the meaning of a text of municipal law for purposes of determining whether
it complies with a provision of the covered agreements is a legal characterization.417
A panel’s authority and, where needed to resolve a dispute, its duty to
ascertain the meaning of municipal law is uncontested. As its reports
referred to above demonstrate, the Appellate Body has reviewed panel
findings on the meaning of municipal law. The Appellate Body recognised, however, the
limitations of its mandate in this respect, especially when the meaning cannot be determined
based on the text of the measure at issue and requires recourse to other instruments, such as
evidence or practice of application or expert opinions. As discussed in Chapter 3, the
Appellate Body’s stance on this issue has been strongly criticised by the US and others and
has been addressed in discussions on Appellate Body reform.418

Although Congress specifically approved the agreements, it simultaneously provided ‘no

provision of any of the Uruguay Round Agreements, nor the application of any such
provision
to any person or circumstances, that is inconsistent with any law of the United States shall
have effect’. Furthermore, Congress mandated that no person other than the United States
‘shall have any cause of action or defence under any of the Uruguay Round Agreements’ or
challenge ‘any action or inaction ... of the United States, any state, or any political
subdivision
of a state on the ground that such action or inaction is inconsistent’ with one of those
agreements. In short, the Uruguay Round Agreements themselves are unlikely to be directly
applied in any proceedings other than a proceeding brought by the United States for the
purpose of enforcing obligations under the agreements.

Against the background of the ongoing reform efforts, this chapter

discusses the distinctive features of the WTO as the principal
intergovernmental organisation for international trade and successively
addresses: (1) the origins of the WTO; (2) the mandate of the WTO, i.e. its
objectives and functions; (3) the membership and institutional structure of
the WTO; and (4) decision-making in the WTO.

2.2 Uruguay Round of Multilateral Trade Negotiations

The 1986 Punta del Este Ministerial Declaration contained a very broad and
ambitious mandate for negotiations. According to this Declaration, the
Uruguay Round negotiations would cover, inter alia, trade in goods
(including trade in agricultural products and trade in textiles), as well as –
for the first time in history – trade in services. The establishment of a new
international organisation for trade was not, however, among the Uruguay
Round’s initial objectives. The Punta del Este Ministerial Declaration
explicitly recognised the need for institutional reforms in the GATT system,
but the ambitions were limited in this respect. The institutional issues for
negotiation identified in the Punta del Este Declaration focused on: regular
monitoring of trade policies and practices of Contracting Parties; improving
the overall effectiveness and decision-making of the GATT; and
strengthening the GATT’s relationship with the IMF and the World Bank to
achieve greater coherence in global economic policymaking.29

3 Mandate of the WTO

The WTO was formally established and became operational on 1 January
1995 when the WTO Agreement entered into force. Pursuant to the WTO
Agreement, the WTO has a broad and ambitious mandate. This section
examines two main aspects of this mandate, namely: (1) the objectives of
the WTO; and (2) the functions of the WTO.

The growing development deficit that slowly crept into the negotiations and emptied the
development ambition of the [Doha Development Agenda (DDA)] mandate … While in
agriculture, higher ambition, which served a developmental objective, was being consistently
diluted through multiple flexibilities for developed countries, in NAMA the developmental
concerns of protecting industrial development and employment in developing countries were
being denied by a predatory mercantilist approach of seeking higher market access in
developing countries
We recognize that many Members reaffirm the Doha Development Agenda, and the Declarations
and Decisions adopted at Doha and at the Ministerial Conferences held since then, and reaffirm their
full commitment to conclude the DDA on that basis. Other Members do not reaffirm the Doha
mandates, as they believe new approaches are necessary to achieve meaningful outcomes in
multilateral negotiations. Members have different views on how to address the negotiations …
Nevertheless, there remains a strong commitment of all Members to advance negotiations on the
remaining Doha issues.1