Study of Conflicts of Jurisdiction between the World Trade Organization and Regional Trade Agreements

Regional Trade Agreements (RTAs) have become an integral feature of today’s international trading system. The paper addresses the issue of horizontal allocation of judicial jurisdiction between the dispute settlement mechanism of regional trade agreements and that of the WTO. After having examined principles of international commercial law, the paper suggests that in the current state of international law, no rules seems to offer any effective answer to resolve conflicts of jurisdiction in the context of the WTO Agreement and RTAs. It is thus for states to decide how the dispute settlement mechanisms of the WTO and RTAs should operate and interact with each other. And this paper concludes with pointing to areas of discussions.