Developing Countries Participating As Third Parties in the WTO Dispute Settlement

Xiaoming Pan, Nagoya University

Abstract

While almost all of the issues in the dispute settlement process of the WTO have been discussed, the issue of third parties has not been explored thoroughly and deeply. This paper, by examining the 16-year practice of Members as third parties, seeks to generalize characteristics of their participation of developed countries and developing countries. Beyond the characteristics, it elaborates the reasons contributing to the gaps of the participation levels between developed countries and developing countries. In the end, it proposes how to improve the third party rules in order to provide more sufficient protection for developing countries.