The operation of the World Trade Organization may soon stall because of U.S. delays in appointing new judges, Canada’s trade minister said as he prepares to convene another round of reform talks in Davos.
Jim Carr, in an interview with Bloomberg’s Kathleen Hays in Tokyo, said the U.S. refusal to appoint judges to the appellate body of the 164-nation WTO means that in “the next number of months” the WTO’s dispute settlement system will effectively stall. That lends urgency to talks set to take place on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum in Davos this week.
