Clete Willems Quoted by CQ on US Moves re: WTO Appellate Body

For its article “US seeks arbitrator in China case at WTO,” CQ quoted Akin Gump public law and policy partner Clete Willems on the U.S. government’s posture regarding the World Trade Organization’s Appellate Body.

The article discusses U.S. government attempts to parry a request by China to increase tariffs on $2.4 billion of U.S. imports by requesting an arbitrator. CQ notes that this case involves U.S. discontent with the WTO’s Appellate Body, which decided the case.

Willems, who worked at the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative for eight years and as chief counsel for negotiations, legislation and administrative law and legal advisor to the U.S. Mission to the WTO, said that U.S. complaints re: the WTO’s Appellate Body are of long standing, due, in part, to the growing institutional authority of the legal staff at the WTO headquarters in Geneva who have shaped its jurisprudence in a way inimical to U.S. interests.

He said, “That’s why any solution here requires structural change,” and noted that the ongoing U.S. position of blocking consideration of new members of the appeals panel—thereby short-circuiting the appeals process—is a way to compel other members to confront the need for institutional change.

Willems added, however, “I don’t believe the U.S. objective is to get rid of dispute settlement.”