The Myth about Stare Decisis and International Trade Law (Part One of a Trilogy)

Abstract

[...] There is an ineluctable – and remarkably rapid – change occurring in the international legal order. It is a movement away from the old-fashioned, continental-style approach to international dispute resolution, and towards the Americanization of adjudicatory mechanisms. The fact that the World Trade Organization's ("WTO") Appellate Body increasingly functions not simply like a court, as distinct from an arbitral tribunal, but like an American court, is one aspect of this more general trend in the global economy of the new millennium. [...]