The Process Performance of the WTO Trade Policy Review Mechanism: Peer‐Reviewing Reconsidered
| Author | Jan Karlas,Michal Parízek |
| Date | 01 September 2019 |
| Published date | 01 September 2019 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/1758-5899.12672 |
The Process Performance of the WTO Trade
Policy Review Mechanism: Peer-Reviewing
Reconsidered
Jan Karlas and Michal Parízek
Charles University, Prague
Abstract
This survey article provides the first comprehensive assessment of the functioning of the Trade Policy Review Mechanism
(TPRM), the central monitoring platform of the World Trade Organization (WTO), over the first 20 years of the WTO’s existence
(1995–2014). Building on two large new datasets, we assess the performance of the Mechanism along three dimensions: (1)
members’participation rates in trade policy reviews (TPRs); (2) the coverage of trade flows through participation of states in
relevant TPRs; and (3) the content of their input into the reviews. Descriptively, we identify a very prominent increase in mem-
bers’participation rates, but also a very high share of dyadic trade flows covered by the TPRs. In the most recent period,
members accounting for up to 95 per cent of the imports into the reviewed state take part in the TPRs, on average. We also
argue that the Mechanism provides space for substantial critical reviewing of members’policies, especially in some areas such
as agriculture. However, we also identify specific pitfalls of the Mechanism, especially in its excessive formalism and lack of
interactive discussion.
Monitoring constitutes one of the central functions of the
World Trade Organization (WTO). Through its monitoring
activities, the WTO crucially supports interstate cooperation
within the multilateral trade regime, as knowing how coop-
erating partners behave is necessary for the readiness of
states to comply with the regime’s rules (Baccini and Kim,
2012; Dai, 2002; Keohane, 1984). To ensure regular and com-
prehensive monitoring of national trade policies, the WTO
has been using the Trade Policy Review Mechanism (TPRM)
as its central institutional platform devoted to monitoring
activities for more than two decades now (Collins-Williams
and Wolfe, 2010). A key question for the TPRM, and for
peer-reviews in international organizations (IOs) more
broadly, is how well they perform their functions (Hale,
2017).
The majority of studies dealing with the TPRM were lar-
gely written in the 1990s, at the time when the TPRM was
beginning to operate, and examined the formal design of
the Mechanism and its potential evolution (see e.g. Black-
hurst, 1988; Qureshi, 1990). Several subsequent studies also
explored the practical functioning of the TPRM (Conzel-
mann, 2008; Ghosh, 2010; Keesing, 1998; Laird and Vald
es,
2012; Zahrnt, 2009). In some of these studies, a number of
significant deficiencies in the performance of the Mecha-
nism were identified. In particular, their criticism was tar-
geted at review meetings taking place in the Trade Policy
Review Body (TPRB). The participation of the member states
in the meetings was regarded as rather low. The TPRB meet-
ings were characterized as formalistic and unproductive, as
resembling a diplomatic exercise more than a review pro-
cess. Overall, some of the existing studies concluded that
the TPRM contributes to transparency in the global trade
regime only in a very limited way. For example, Arunabha
Ghosh reached a conclusion that ‘contrary to what the
TPRM had been envisaged for, in general member states do
not consider the TPR process to be an effective forum for
applying pressure’(Ghosh, 2010, p. 442). Likewise, Valentin
Zahrnt found out that ‘there is a widespread disappoint-
ment’with the shape of the TPRM and that ‘lagging behind
other organizations in its core domain is an embarrassing
situation for the WTO’(Zahrnt, 2009, pp. 2, 5).
In this survey article, we offer a reassessment of the per-
formance of the TPRM, motivated by three key facts. First,
the study of peer-review mechanisms in IOs has recently
started to rise in prominence in the scholarly analysis (Hale,
2017). Such topics as the authority of peer-reviews in IOs
(Jongen, 2018) or their politicization have been addressed
(Terman and Voeten, 2018). With widely observed troubles
of hard, legalized cooperation, across various issue areas, an
increased focus on soft cooperation mechanisms, such as
peer reviews, is perhaps only natural (for a review of the
troubles of major global cooperation schemes, see Hale and
Held, 2017).
1
Second, in the last 2 or 3 years the problem of
transparency (and a lack thereof) has received major politi-
cal attention in the WTO, especially from the European
Union and the United States (Wolfe 2017; Edwards, 2018;
Karlas and Par
ızek, 2019). Third, while we acknowledge that
the previous findings about the limited performance of the
TPRM have some relevancy, we also argue that the existing
research on this topic is marked by several key deficiencies.
First of all, the existing studies are not based on a system-
atic analysis of the quantitative data related to the
©2019 University of Durham and John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Global Policy (2019) 10:3 doi: 10.1111/1758-5899.12672
Global Policy Volume 10 . Issue 3 . September 2019
376
Survey Article
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