Egypt National Dialogue on WTO Dispute Settlement: Exploring Strategies to Enhance Egypt’s Participation in WTO Dispute Settlement

15th – 16th April 2008 • Co-organised with Trade-Related Assistance Center (TRAC); ICTSD

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One of the most notable achievements of the multilateral trading system is the establishment of a dispute settlement mechanism. It is unique in that it seeks to enforce in an economically and politically meaningful way rulings sufficient to compel a violating party to reform its act or omission. The WTO Dispute Settlement Understanding (DSU) seeks to ensure an improved prospect of compliance, given its provisions on compensation and retaliation, and thus constitutes a central element in providing security and predictability to the multilateral trade system.

In order for a country to maximize its trade potential under the multilateral trade system, it must be able to defend its trade rights if needed. The necessary skills to enable such performance have been cultivated in most developed countries but the same unfortunately does not apply in many developing countries. Egypt has built up a strong private sector and a responsive public administrative system and possesses many of the necessary devices to fully utilize the trading system. Nevertheless, Egypt has been formally challenged at the WTO on four occasions but is yet to initiate a complaint against a trade partner, albeit a number of trade barriers have already been identified. For Egypt to change this pattern it is crucial that the private sector is deeply involved in Egypt’s foreign trade policy discussions; helps strengthen Egypt’s public-private partnerships; and works unified with the government to achieve Egypt’s international trade objectives, including by utilizing the WTO dispute settlement system.

If Egypt is to advance its trade objectives over the coming years and not merely respond to increasingly aggressive attacks from strong trade partners, the private sector, as the direct beneficiaries of WTO law and rights must boost its understanding of the multilateral trade system and engage directly in close cooperation with the government.

As a contribution to this debate, Amcham and ICTSD are bringing together experts from Egypt and Geneva to discuss and reflect on why the WTO dispute settlement is a strategic instrument that the Egyptian private sector should exploit, and how to strengthen public-private partnerships for Egypt to maximize its international trade potential. The national dialogue provides a platform for the private sector to engage in discussions with WTO experts; strengthen its knowledge and understanding of WTO law and options; share experiences; and identify possible strategies that could facilitate a more effective engagement of the system where the need arises. The dialogue will be conducted as an open informal process with encouraged frank discussions following each of the presentations.

In 2006, ICTSD launched a series of regional dialogues with the overarching objective to explore strategies to enhance the participation of developing countries in the WTO dispute settlement system where the need arises. The first of these dialogues, for Asia, was held in Indonesia in January 2006, the second, for South America, was convened in Brazil in June 2006, and the third, for Africa, took place in Kenya in November 2006.