Panels’ consultations with scientific experts: The right to seek information under Article 13 of the DSU

Commercial disputes brought under the auspices of the WTO are becoming more and more complex. As a consequence of the increasingly judicial nature of the WTO dispute settlement system, parties submit increasingly sophisticated legal, but also – and this is a relatively new trend – factual arguments. By their very nature, instruments such as the Agreement on Sanitary and Phytosanitary Measures (SPS Agreement) or the Agreement on Technical Barriers to Trade (TBT Agreement) mean that WTO panels have to adjudicate disputes entailing scientific issues. But disputes brought under the GATT 1994 have also raised contested scientific issues relating to human health and to the conservation of natural resources. Moreover, in the new ‘legalized’ WTO dispute settlement system, as opposed to the more ‘diplomatic’ procedures used under the GATT 1947, parties tend to increasingly dispute factual evidence.