Organização mundial do comércio: de seu surgimento como organismo multilateral à recente fragilização do órgão de apelação

Abstract

This scientific article aims to discuss the phenomenon of destabilization suffered by the World Trade Organization (WTO), from the year 2019. The Organism, gestated over decades after the Second World War, and founded on a logic of promoting multilateralism and negotiation in international trade, has endured a fragmentation caused in its judicial mechanism for reviewing the reports prepared by the Panels included in the Dispute Settlement System, the Appellate Body. It appears that this fracture originates from the posture adopted by the United States of America which, by not accepting decisions unfavorable to its policies and commercial intentions, subjected the Agency to the indeterminate impossibility of confirming, modifying or revoking the legal understandings of the Panels, through the exercise of the appeal instance. The paralysis of the Appellate Body stems from the failure to reach the minimum quorum of judges to deliberate, which occurs due to the refusal of the US to appoint someone to occupy the vacant position. In this context, it is concluded that there is a normative weakness derived from the WTO constitution itself, as well as an attempt by the participating Members to establish an alternative to the boycott and the ineffectiveness of the organism.