An introductory workshop on WTO dispute settlement is being offered in Guatemala City later this month by UNCTAD, in collaboration with the Guatemalan Chamber of Commerce.
The regional workshop for Central America (18-20 February) is the ninth to be organized by UNCTAD´s project on dispute settlement in international trade, investment and intellectual property. More than 300 participants from some 76 developing countries, least developed countries and countries in transition have benefited from the previous workshops. Government officials and diplomats dealing with international trade; academics; lawyers; and representatives of trade unions, the private sector and NGOs from Belize, Costa Rica, Cuba, the Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, Jamaica and Nicaragua are expected to attend this month´s event.
The objective of the project in general, and of this workshop in particular, is to help build trade-related capacity in developing countries. The workshop will draw on four of 36 modules developed to date, on such topics as the settlement of international trade disputes by WTO panels; how those panels´ reports are reviewed by the WTO appellate body; and how that body´s decisions are implemented. Actual cases involving Central American countries, their impact on each country´s trading practices, and how the decisions affect the practices of developing countries in general will be analysed.
Some 185,000 copies of the modules have been downloaded from the project website to date, the majority of them by users from developing countries.
The workshop is being financed by the United Nations and the Government of France.
