Preserving the Appellate Stage in the WTO Dispute Settlement Mechanism: The EU and the Multi-Party Interim Appeal Arbitration Arrangement

Since May 2016, the United States of America has been vetoing the selection of the members of the WTO Appellate Body, alleging procedural and substantive criticisms on the activity of the Standing Tribunal. Consequently, at midnight of 10 December 2019 the World Trade Court ceased to be operational, as only Zhao Hong, the Chinese judge, remained in office. Not even the latter Appellate Body member was spared by the US administration: in fact, in March 2020, Ambassador Shea claimed before the DSB that Ms Zhao, being a paid affiliate of the PRC Government, is not a valid member of the Appellate Body. Faced with such an unprecedented WTO institutional crisis, the EU has chosen to be a major actor in the reform process of the WTO appellate review mechanism. Beyond presenting important institutional proposals to amend Article 17 of the DSU, which have been highly considered in the draft decision on the functioning of the Appellate Body presented in late 2019 by the WTO Facilitator Ambassador Walker, the EU launched a very interesting temporary solution to save appeals in Geneva, the Multi-Party Interim Appeal Arbitration Arrangement (MPIA). The purpose of the present work is to analyse how the EU wisely suggested, developed, and progressively gained support for its MPIA project within the WTO community, illustrating the main aspects of the temporary alternative appeal arbitration mechanism, and considering what the MPIA may achieve.