Can the Dispute Settlement Provisions of Regional Trade Agreement be Applied by WTO Panels and Appellate Body? : The Mexico Soft Drinks Case

Authors

  • Nattapat Limsiritong

Keywords:

Mexico Soft Drink, WTO Dispute Settlement, WTO Panel’s Jurisdiction

Abstract

The Mexico Soft Drinks case arose out of a trade dispute between the United States and Mexico relating to the market for sweeteners in North America. 1 This paper will not only provide the background of WTO dispute settlement mechanism and background of the case but also show pop-up legal issues including the impacts of the decision. This case also provides a dramatization of the weakness of the WTO dispute settlement on (i) Jurisdiction of the WTO Panel and (ii) its authority to apply other dispute settlement provision of regional trade agreement to the WTO dispute.

This paper has found that (i) WTO Panel can exercise its jurisdiction under WTO Covered Agreement only and (ii) they cannot apply other RTA’s to the WTO dispute. Furthermore the impacts of this decision raised up a problem of overlapping between RTA and WTO agreement.

Author Biography

Nattapat Limsiritong

Nattapat Limsiritong is now working on his PhD in International Economic Law under scholarship of Xiamen university at School of Law, Xiamen university, Xiamen, China

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