./.WORLD TRADE
ORGANIZATIONTN/DS/W/60
8 December 2003
(03-6466)
Dispute Settlement Body
Special SessionOriginal:  English
CONTRIBUTION FROM THAILAND (RELATED TO ARTICLE 17 OF THE DSU)
Communication from Thailand
The following communication, dated 28 November 2003, is being circulated at the request of
the Delegation of Thailand.
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1. Problems
The table below, based on statistics maintained by the Secretariat, shows how many cases
each of Appellate Body (AB) members had been assigned per year.  It reflects the fact that the number
of disputes has declined after the year 2000, but given the circumstances where the issue of the peaceclause is uncertain and where application of anti-dumping measures, including safeguards measures,
is likely to increase, workload of each of AB members is apparently in the upward trend.
Moreover, the Mexican paper has on page 7 shown to us that there are 89 panel reports
adopted so far, as opposed to 64 Appellate Body reports adopted by the DSB.  It would not be misled
to conclude that more than half of the disputes had been appealed during the past years.  This figure
confirms our valid argument that each AB member had about four disputes to hear per year, other
than arbitration proceedings assigned to them individually.  We are of the view that each of
AB members will continue to have about the same number or more of disputes to hear per year in the
future.
1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002
Mr. Feliciano 2 1 4 5 6 3
Mr. Beeby 1 3 4 2
Mr. Matsushita 2 3 3 4 1
M r .  L a c a r t e - M u r o 224374
M r .  B a c c h u s 132574 3
M r .  E l - N a g g a r 21441
M r .  E h l e r m a n n 223463 4
Mr. Ganesan 2 6 2
Mr. Abi-Saab 3 4 3
Mr. Taniguchi 3 4 2
Mr. Baptista 3
Mr. Sacerdoti 1 3
Mr. Lockhart 3TN/DS/W/60
Page 2
2. Questions
1. Do we want each of AB members to hear and consider cases under assignment with sufficient
time to deliberate among themselves and perhaps to have consultations among them en banc , when it
is reported on page 15 of the Mexican paper that the AB has issued only 7.8 per cent of its total
number of reports within the timeframe of 60 days, and that presumably Equador could have lostUS$14.7 million for the average time over schdule in an AB proceeding?
2. Don’t we want to allow the AB to set up in itself three separate chambers to hear disputes so
that it would facilitate their work assignment at the same time so that any AB member will not be
assigned to unnecessarily hear more disputes than others, and than they could focus themselves on
legal issues raised by disputants based on their expertise in such areas?
3. Don’t we want to increase AB members at the time when we have the mandate to do so, or do
we want to delay it until such time necessary where there may or may not be a mandate as such?
4. Do we want to have as many experts in different areas as possible to serve as AB Members,
for example, in the areas of intellectual property, services, agriculture?
5. Would there be a lot of financial implications to the Membership as a whole if the number of
AB members is increased from seven to nine?
6. Do we think that the AB is unable to handle the issue of colleagiality if, and if only, the
number of AB members is increased in a very c onservative manner, for instance, two (from seven to
nine, which is far from seven to twenty or thirty)?
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