The Ministry of Economy and Commerce (MEC), in collaboration with the International Trade Training Institute of the World Trade Organisation (WTO), has organised a workshop on “The Dispute Settlement Mechanism of the WTO” from September 27 to September 29.
The workshop comes within the framework of the MEC’s efforts to organise and conduct technical cooperation activities that will support the building and development of capabilities and will deepen the understanding of government employees of the Doha Round negotiations for the WTO.
A large number of employees from several institutions participated in the workshop, including the MEC, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Ministry of Transport and Communications, Ministry of Energy and Industry, Ministry of Justice, Supreme Judicial Council, Public Prosecutor, General Authority of Customs, Qatar University, Qatar Petroleum, Qatar Central Bank, Qatar Financial Centre Regulatory Authority, and Qatar Chamber.
During the workshop, a number of WTO experts clarified the basic elements of the dispute settlement mechanism of the WTO and procedures for settling the commercial disputes within the WTO starting from friendly consultations among the state members.
In addition, the experts highlighted the building-up mechanism for the Dispute Settlement Body up to the provisions issued by the WTO.
The WTO experts implemented various applications and interactive exercises, in addition to conducting a simulation to build up a dispute settlement authority and examine one of the disputes.
The dispute settlement mechanism was established immediately after the establishment of the WTO in January 1, 1995. Since its inception, about 500 disputes were settled between the state members of the WTO.
The dispute settlement mechanism is one of the core pillars of the multilateral trading system, where the mechanism guarantees a safer trading system that is based on clearly defined rules to ensure the preservation of the commercial interests of the state members of the WTO.