19 U.S.C. § 3537 — Access to WTO dispute settlement process
submitted 32 years ago by Pub. L. 103-465 to r/title-19-CUSTOMS-DUTIES · 538 words · no verdicts yet
This section requires consultation, public notice, document access, and a public file when the United States is a party to a WTO dispute. It also requires the Trade Representative to consider advice and public comments in United States submissions.
(a) In general. Whenever the United States is a party before a panel* established under Article 6 of the Dispute Settlement Understanding*, the Trade Representative must at every stage before the panel or Appellate Body* consult the appropriate congressional committees*, any petitioner under section 2412(a) concerning the matter, and relevant private-sector advisory committees under section 2155. The Trade Representative must consider views from appropriate interested private-sector and nongovernmental organizations.
(b) Notice and public comment. In such a proceeding, the Trade Representative must, promptly after asking for a panel or receiving another member country’s request, publish a Federal Register notice: (1) identifying the initial parties; (2) stating the major issues raised by the requesting country and the legal basis of the complaint; (3) identifying the specific measures, including any cited State or Federal law; and (4) requesting written public comments. The Trade Representative must consider advice from the committees and comments received when preparing United States submissions.
(c) Access to documents. The Trade Representative must: (1) promptly make United States written submissions public after filing, but may withhold information identified by its provider as proprietary or treated as confidential by a foreign government; (2) ask each other party to allow that party’s submissions to be made public; and (3) promptly make each panel or Appellate Body report public after circulation to WTO members and tell the public it is available.
(d) Requests for nonconfidential summaries. In every proceeding under the Dispute Settlement Understanding, the Trade Representative must ask each party for a nonconfidential summary of its submissions if the party has not made them public, and must make the summaries public promptly after receiving them.
(e) Public file. The Trade Representative must keep a public file for each United States dispute under the Dispute Settlement Understanding. It must contain all United States submissions, a list of public submissions to the Trade Representative about the proceeding, the panel report, and the Appellate Body report.
Whenever the United States is a party before a dispute settlement panel* established pursuant to Article 6 of the Dispute Settlement Understanding*, the Trade Representative shall, at each stage of the proceeding before the panel* or the Appellate Body*, consult with the appropriate congressional committees*, the petitioner (if any) under section 2412(a) of this title with respect to the matter that is the subject of the proceeding, and relevant private sector advisory committees established under section 2155 of this title, and shall consider the views of representatives of appropriate interested private sector and nongovernmental organizations concerning the matter.
In any proceeding described in subsection (a), the Trade Representative shall—
promptly after requesting the establishment of a panel, or receiving a request from another WTO member country for the establishment of a panel, publish a notice in the Federal Register—
identifying the initial parties to the dispute,
setting forth the major issues raised by the country requesting the establishment of a panel and the legal basis of the complaint,
identifying the specific measures, including any State or Federal law cited in the request for establishment of the panel, and
seeking written comments from the public concerning the issues raised in the dispute; and
take into account any advice received from appropriate congressional committees* and relevant private sector advisory committees referred to in subsection (a), and written comments received pursuant to paragraph (1)(D), in preparing United States submissions to the panel or the Appellate Body.
In each proceeding described in subsection (a), the Trade Representative shall—
make written submissions by the United States referred to in subsection (b) available to the public promptly after they are submitted to the panel or Appellate Body, except that the Trade Representative is authorized to withhold from disclosure any information contained in such submissions identified by the provider of the information as proprietary information or information treated as confidential by a foreign government;
request each other party to the dispute to permit the Trade Representative to make that party’s written submissions to the panel or the Appellate Body available to the public; and
make each report of the panel or the Appellate Body available to the public promptly after it is circulated to WTO members, and inform the public of such availability.
In any dispute settlement proceeding conducted pursuant to the Dispute Settlement Understanding, the Trade Representative shall request each party to the dispute to provide nonconfidential summaries of its written submissions, if that party has not made its written submissions public, and shall make those summaries available to the public promptly after receiving them.
The Trade Representative shall maintain a file accessible to the public on each dispute settlement proceeding to which the United States is a party that is conducted pursuant to the Dispute Settlement Understanding. The file shall include all United States submissions in the proceeding and a listing of any submissions to the Trade Representative from the public with respect to the proceeding, as well as the report of the dispute settlement panel and the report of the Appellate Body.
Source credit: (Pub. L. 103–465, title I, § 127, Dec. 8, 1994, 108 Stat. 4835.)
- 1994Enacted · Pub. L. 103-465 · 108 Stat. 4835
A history note hasn’t been published yet. The record shows enactment by Pub. L. 103-465 on 1994-12-08.
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