Reviewing Petros C. Mavroidis & Alan O. Sykes, The WTO and International Trade Law: Dispute Settlement (2005)

Professors Petros Mavroidis and Alan Sykes have produced a dependable compendium on the WTO dispute settlement system. The book consists of six parts corresponding to six critical issues in the field; namely: (1) the function of the WTO dispute settlement system, (2) the standard of review, (3) remedies, (4) participation, (5) unilateral enforcement, and (6) governance. In each part, they carefully selected representative and informative articles which offer readers perspectives that are essential to comprehend this salient and discrete disciplinary area in the study of the WTO. Notwithstanding a few weaknesses, such as limited descriptions of the “dynamic” development of the GATT/WTO dispute settlement system and “economic” analyses of the WTO dispute settlement system, as well as the use of slightly dated material in the section discussing unilateralism (Part V), it still remains a very useful guide in the study of the WTO dispute settlement system for novices and the cognoscenti alike.