At that point, the parties, led by legal teams, go for the jugular. The international relations expert will explain, a titre juste , that the new DSU makes legal resolution more attractive to Members because, for example, it can equalize egregious disparities of power which exist at the negotiation table. At the negotiating table a Venezuela is a Venezuela and the United States is The United States and the name of the game is power. But make no mistake. A huge factor in the decision whether to go for legal resolution will have been the conscious and often subconscious input by lawyers driven by ambition and their particular professional deformations.
Lawyers like to litigate and win cases.
But it is empowering of lawyers, makes them much more central and consequently explains the infusion of legal culture into WTO discourse. But one cannot overestimate the importance of the mere existence of the Appellate Body to a shift in organizational legal culture. The Appellate Body, in style, content and self-understanding is a high court. It reviews Panel Reports in precisely the same way that higher courts review a first instance decision in any of our municipal legal systems. That is how it should be.