Introduction

For a long time, international dispute settlement proceedings have not been receptive of the idea of introducing an appellate mechanism. For instance, the legal proceedings at the Permanent Court of International Justice and the succeeding International Court of Justice have not had an appellate mechanism in place. Neither do international arbitration proceedings between two sovereign states conducted under public international law. In fact, the World Trade Organization ("WTO") dispute settlement mechanism and some of recent Free Trade Agreement ("FTA") dispute settlement mechanisms ...