Research On The Application Of Dynamic Treaty Interpretation In WTO Dispute Settlement

Since the establishment of the World Trade Organization, the dispute settlement of the WTO members has become an indispensable part of the normal operation to the World Trade Organization. In dispute settlement, the interpretation of relevant legal documents is the essential activities. While the 31,32 and 33 of the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaty provide the treaty interpretation rules, they can not play a perpetual role in explaining the legal documents of WTO.At the same time, the continuous development of the international society challenges the traditional methods of the legal interpretation. In this case, the new interpretation method-dynamic statutory interpretation proposed by western scholars, has been more and more applied by the International Court of justice and the European Court of human rights. The Import Prohibition of Certain Shrimp and Shrimp Products was the first application of the dynamic interpretation of treaties in 1998 in WTO dispute settlement mechanism.Therefore, this method is of great concern in the theoretical and practical circles.Three cases of dynamic interpretation of treaties have been applied in WTO dispute settlement.They are the case of United States-Import Prohibition Of Certain Shrimp And Shrimp Products,United State-Measures Affecting The Cross-Border Supply Of Gambling And Betting Services,China-Measures Affecting Trading Rights And Distribution Services For Certain Publications And Audiovisual Entertainment Products.This kind of method has two flaws in the application of WTO dispute settlement from these three cases.One of them is the lots of the arbitrariness breaking the established rights and obligations of the members; the other one is the excessive expansion of dynamic interpretation of treaties damaging legislative power of the ministerial conference.And then analyzes the causes of these flaws.The main reasons for are:improper use of judicial activism, lack of necessary restrictions on the dynamic interpretation of treaties and the dispute of applicable elements of the dynamic interpretation of treaties.If the dispute settlement body wants to apply this kind of dynamic interpretation of treaties, it is necessary to give a certain restriction to the application of the method of dynamic interpretation of treaties. These measures include:moderate use of judicialactivism, to give a dynamic interpretation of treaties and to define and redefining the applicable conditions, so that the referee can get the member’s convincing.WTO dispute settlement mechanism for the application of the dynamic interpretation of the treaty has not yet formed a trend. But our country has already gotten the lesson in this respect. Therefore, we should strengthen the research on the method of interpretation in the theory circle and the practice circle, in order to protect our interests in the future.