ABSTRACT: The objectives of the General Agreement on Tarriffs and Trade (GATT) and the World Trade Organizations(WTO) have
been to promote multilateralism and non-discriminatory trade practices.Over the years,especially in the nineties,regionalism has paralleled the growth of multilateralism.The latter is proclaimed to be the defining principle of the WTO.It is argued in this paper that the growth of regionalism does not necessarily imply more cooperation and lesser trade conflicts.The fall in the number of trade disputes brought to the WTO in the recent years could well be due to waning of euphoria with the dispute settlement procedure of the WTO,rather than the dispute settlement procedure proving as a deterrent to the unfair trade practices.The WTO agreements accord a wide scope for practicing non-discriminatory trade in the form of various exceptions,such as,safeguard measures,anti-dumping and countervailing duties,sanitary and phytosanitary measures,regional integration,etc.By and large,the ruling of panels and the appellate body have gone in favour of the complainants.It may be due to the fact that the disputes which are brought to the WTO are,more often than not, in the nature of the genuine violations of the WTO-consistent trade.However,the
effective use of the DSP by small open
economies is rather limited.This is due to the fact that the resources required to take a trade dispute to its logical conclusion are often disproportionately large in comparision to the expected benefits from the same.There have been inordinate delays in delivering rulings by the DSP.The remedy in the form of retaliation is neither effective as a deterrent to unfair trade,nor can small open economies dare to use this instrument against large open economies.The ultimate remedy of retaliation is suicidal to the small developing countries.There is a strong case for negotiating more trade liberalization from the erring countries,and also for creating a common pool within the WTO framework to provide legal aid to the developing countries so as to make the DSP more effective.