Jang Seung-hwa, Chairman of the Trade Committee[사진=산업통상자원부]
Jang Seung-hwa, chairman of the Trade Commission, made the first arbitration award in history in the World Trade Organization (WTO) appeal case.
According to the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy and the Trade Commission on the 26th, Chairman Jang participated in the arbitration award of the European Union (EU) and Turkiye’s ‘dispute on domestic industrialization of pharmaceuticals’ in the appeals court.
The dispute arose following the Turkish government compelled the establishment of a manufacturing plant for the drug in Korea under the condition of obtaining permission to import foreign drugs, and the EU filed a complaint with the WTO, claiming that it was a complementary trade measure.
At present, the WTO Appellate Body has virtually paralyzed its appeals function as all of its members have been vacant since 2020. On March 25, for the first time in WTO history, the EU and Turkiye agreed to refer the appeal to arbitration using the arbitration clause in Article 25 of the Understanding on Dispute Settlement Rules and Procedures (DSU).
On May 4, the parties to the dispute conducted arbitration by appointing three arbitrators, including former WTO Appellate Committee Chairman Chang, Diego Fernandez Inrade Mexican law firm AGON, and Yang Gwan-hwa, a professor of law at Tsinghua University.
The arbitrators ruled in favor of the EU in the arbitration proceedings at the Court of Appeal. The award has the same legal force as the WTO Appellate Body decision. The arbitration award of the appeals court has been circulated to 164 WTO member states, and it is likely that other member countries will use the new arbitration model to settle disputes.
Chairman Jang said, “As a former WTO Appellate Member, I fulfilled my duty as the WTO’s first arbitrator of appeals with a sense of duty as it is an event that WTO member countries around the world pay attention to.”
- reporter information
- Seok-Jun Jeong
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