Discussion About The Problem Of Third Party Intervention In The Arbitration Of WTO

With the conclusion of Uruguay Round final Agreement in 1994, the arbitration within the multilateral trade system which having been gone through a rough and bumpy road in the past 50 years defined at last. The arbitration with in the WTO is the integrated system which serves the general arbitration as the chief clause, the special arbitration as the assistant clause and the arbitration under the covered agreement out of DSU as the subsidiary. The third participant in the arbitration within the WTO emerges as the times require by value of its particular importance.The third participant in the WTO settlement system of disputes is indispensable. As a matter of fact, almost all cases under WTO settlement proceedings have one or more third participants involved nowadays. Since GATT belongs to"the type of power"on the whole, disputes were settled more by the diplomatic method at the beginning; thus, it hardly involved the problem of third participant. However, GATT disputes settlement proceedings are more and more judicial in practice. At the end of the Uruguay Round of Multilateral Trade Negotiations, the Dispute Settlement Understanding (DSU) was adopted. The DSU includes more details on third party's intervention than the former documents, but nearly all the rules concern the consultation proceeding, the panel proceeding and the appealing proceeding. The rules of arbitration are seldom. Arbitrators have to apply the rules concerning the panel proceeding to arbitration cases, and DSU provisions on panel proceedings, referred to by analogy in the arbitrators' working procedures, give the arbitrators discretion to decide on procedural matters. As the results, the rights of third participant in arbitration cases are not steady and clear. Hence, the amendment to the DSU is inevitable.The difference and the similarity between the third participant of arbitration in the DSU and the third party in NAFTA or the third party in the international commercial arbitration brighten our horizon to perfect the reform to the third participant of arbitration in the WTO settlement. At the Doha Ministerial Conference, many member governments call on reforming third party's system and some agreements have been made. However, considered the special characters of WTO settlement, the future of the reform will be rough.