Study On "Amicus Curiae" In WTO Dispute Settlement System

Recent years,more and more voice have been calling for a reform to the WTO dispute settlement mechanism,not only members of the WTO, also including international organizations that are the non-members of the WTO (especially non-governmental organizations), Groups and etc.With the advancement of the economic globalization and trade liberalization, the WTO trades are involved in more widely field,while their professions are also growing, which led to the trade disputes are complex, not just restricted to the interests whithin the dispute parties, more and more NGOs have been constantly tried to participate in the dispute resolution process as "amicus curiae", fighted for the public interests they represent.The change of the social situation and the inevitable lag of dispute settlement mechanism brought many problems to the DSB,the participation of "amicus curiae" got the acceptance of the dispute settlement body’, but their legitimacy have been controversial by the WTO members,there are constantly argument no metter in the academic or theoretical circles.What the WTO members doubt of the "amicus curiae" is that,the DSU rules and other WTO Agreements were not clearly defined on the "amicus curiae", the dispute settlement body developed the "amicus curiae" gradually in cases, from the beginning of acceptance to specially formulate with additional procedural rules in a case. The members’ controversies were focused on the legal basis the DSB cited and the judicial interpretations by them were legitimate or not. Such situation was caused by on one hand, the value of the system can not be ignored, which is in line with current international trends,that’s the reason why although the dispute settlement body was faced with the doubt of the WTO menbers,they still accepted the "amicus curiae" in practice; on the other hand, the legal basis of the machanism in the WTO system was sick, while the criteria of accept the "amicus curiae" or not in different cases are uncertainty and no predictability, what’s more, the judge reports by the DSB didn’t give sufficient reasons of accepting the "amicus curiae" or not,which caused anxiety whithin the majority of the members,was criticised by them.The paper choose "amicus curiae"s development in the WTO dispute settlement mechanism as the object of study, through analysing typical cases of WTO dispute settlement of "amicus curiae" in practice, draws out the function of the "amicus curiae" and the problems assisted in practice, couples with the situation that the "amicus curiae" system has not yet been resolved in the General Council and the multilateral negotiations, concludes that "amicus curiae" and the dispute settlement mechanism’s conflict.Meanwhile, summarizing the necessity and feasibility of the system by analysing its value.The main part of the issue is by integrating the legal and value aspects, pointing out the most appropriate way of the "amicus curiae" statement in the WTO dispute settlement mechanism presently, making suggestions on the future long-term "amicus curiae" system from the formulation of the principles, the specific procedure and entity rules,providing support for the "amicus curiae" in WTO dispute settlement mechanism’s application.