The future of dispute resolution in international trade

Abstract Given ongoing dysfunction of the World Trade Organization's Appellate Body, the focus of this article is on the future of trade dispute resolution, with evaluation of two questions: (i) What is the current status of WTO dispute resolution as compared to that conducted through existing preferential trade agreements (PTAs)? and (ii) What are the evolving approaches of the United States and EU to trade policy/trade dispute resolution? The overall conclusion is that, by applying “power‐based” bargaining to a broad range of trade policy issues, the United States is contributing to increased trade policy uncertainty.