Treaty Interpretation by the WTO Appellate Body

This book analyses the law of treaty interpretation as applied by the WTO Appellate Body. By focusing on the development of the law in practice, and the intersection of customary international law principles with the growth of WTO specific law, the book reveals the complexity of treaty interpretation in a major international law forum.

Autorentext

Dr. Isabelle Van Damme is the Turpin-Lipstein Fellow and a College Lecturer in Law at Clare College, Cambridge. Isabelle studied law at the University of Cambridge (Ph.D.), Georgetown University Law Center (LL.M.) and the University of Gent (Cand. Iur., Lic. Iur). She has been a Visiting Fellow at the Graduate Institute, Center for Trade and Economic Integration, Geneva; a Global Law Fellow at Columbia Law School, New York; and a Visiting Researcher at Georgetown University Law Center and the Institute of International Economic Law, Washington, DC. She was previously a legal intern at the WTO Appellate Body and a Legal Liaison Officer at the Secretariat of the International Law Commission. Dr. Van Damme teaches Public International Law, WTO Law, International Intellectual Property Law and European Union Law. Her research interests include WTO Law, Public International Law, European Union Law and International Institutional Law.

Inhalt

THE BASIC PRINCIPLES AND CONCEPTS GOVERNING WTO DISPUTE SETTLEMENT AND TREATY INTERPRETATION; 1. The WTO Dispute Settlement System; 2. Principles of Treaty Interpretation: Meaning And Function; 3. The Subject of Treaty Interpretation in WTO Dispute Settlement; 4. The Interpretation of Silence in the WTO Covered Agreements; 5. Inherent Powers and Treaty Interpretation; THE INTERPRETATIVE PRACTICE OF THE WTO APPELLATE BODY; 6. The Contextual Interpretation of the WTO Covered Agreements; 7. The Effective Interpretation of the WTO Covered Agreements; 8. Other Issues in WTO Treaty Interpretation; 9. WTO Treaty Interpretation against the Background of Other International Law; CONCLUSIONS