Treaty Interpretation in WTO Law

Treaty Interpretation in WTO law continues to represent a topic of highly theoretical and practical importance. Recent panel and Appellate Body reports (US - Gambling, EC - Chicken Cuts) have critically turned on ascertaining the meaning of Members' Schedule of commitments and of WTO provisions on the basis of the public international law rules of treaty interpretation as codified in the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties. The approach taken by panels and the Appellate Body is still in a state of flux and subject to controversy.

Dr Ortino has explored this subject in a recent paper focusing on the Gambling dispute (published in the first issue of the JIEL 2006). The paper's principal aim is to review the interpretative approach followed in particular by the Appellate Body in reaching its decision in US - Gambling. Its main argument is that, although the Appellate Body appears to be trying to emancipate itself from a rigorous textual approach, it has not yet embraced a holistic approach to treaty interpretation, one in which the treaty interpreter looks thoroughly at all the relevant elements of the general rule on treaty interpretation pursuant to Article 31(1) of the Vienna Convention. Click here to view the paper.