Thai forwarded for WTO Appellate Body
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Thailand will propose Thanes Sucharikul, a director of Assumption University, as one of the seven key legal experts that make up the Appellate Body of the World Trade Organisation.
If approved, he will become the first representative from Thailand in this important unit of the trade watchdog.
He would replace Shotaro Oshima, a legal expert from Japan, who resigned from the organisation on January 7.
Srirat Rastapana, director-general of the Commerce Ministry’s Trade Negotiations Department, said the Cabinet recently agreed to nominate a representative to join the Appellate Body for the first time to increase Thailand’s role in the WTO.
So far, Thailand has been involved with 61 disputes in the WTO but the Kingdom has never had a representative to monitor the deliberations closely.
With a representative in the Appellate Body, “the country would be able to show its competency among the 153 other member states that Thailand has developed highly on legal education”, Srirat said.
Three other countries – South Korea, Kenya and Japan – have nominated legal experts to fill the vacant position. A WTO committee will interview the applicants and make a final decision next month.
Thanes is currently a director of Assumption University’s Master of Arts Programme in International Law and Diplomatic Education. He was a deputy director-general of the Treaties and Legal Affairs Department of the Foreign Ministry, and was one of the representatives from Thailand joining the WTO’s Uruguay Round of trade negotiation.
He was also a negotiator for resolving disputes between Thailand and other trading partners on the rice-import ban by the European Union and on the Generalised System of Preferences.
The standing body hears appeals on disputes brought by the WTO’s members.
It can uphold, modify or reverse the legal findings and conclusions of a dispute-settlement panel, and Appellate Body Reports, once adopted by the Dispute Settlement Body (DSB), must be accepted by the parties to the dispute. The Appellate Body sits in Geneva, Switzerland.
The body is composed of seven members, who are appointed by the DSB to serve for four-year terms, with the possibility of being reappointed once.
Membership in the Appellate Body must be broadly representative of membership in the WTO itself.
