The Enforcement of WTO Judgments

Abstract

Inspiration for my Essay comes from an influential article written by Michael Reisman four decades ago titled The Enforcement of International Judgments. His article presented a "model" for improving enforcement of international judicial decisions in cases between states. The tribunal that Reisman referred to most often was the International Court of Justice (ICJ). Although there have been some developments in the ICJ since 1969 that benefited from his insights, the tribunal in which Reisman's ideas have flowered the most is the dispute system of the World Trade Organization (WTO). The purpose of my Essay is to point out how the WTO Dispute Settlement Understanding (DSU) achieved much of what Reisman envisioned with respect to systematic enforcement of multilateral tribunal decisions.