WTO Dispute Settlement
Work with the U.S. Trade Representative’s (USTR) Office on a real World Trade Organization (WTO) dispute. Gain practical experience in international trade law, from legal strategy to dispute resolution.
Program overview
Application deadline
October 1
Duration
Spring semester
Presentation at USTR in April
Course number
GBUS 4970
Credits
- 3
Eligibility
Juniors and seniors
Preference will be given to those taking Professor Busch’s International Trade Policy and Law course.
Course overview
Each year, we select students to work on a would-be World Trade Organization (WTO) dispute for the Office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR). The would-be dispute is real, is likely to have been raised by the United States before a committee at the WTO and concerns a trade regulation stemming from a foreign government’s regulation.
The course is split into three sections:
- Relevant WTO legal texts
- Pertinent WTO case law
- Articulating a legal strategy
You will be graded as a team, with the final presentation being the only deliverable. The course ends with a presentation and Q&A before senior staffers at USTR.
This course takes place in Washington, DC.
Professor information
Marc Busch is the Karl F. Landegger Professor of International Business Diplomacy at the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University. He is an expert on international trade policy and law. He has addressed a wide range of governments and international institutions, including the Advisory Centre on WTO Law, the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency, the World Bank and the United Nations. He has testified before the US International Trade Commission on the TRIPS Waiver at the WTO, before the US Congress on Airbus-Boeing litigation, before the Canadian Senate on softwood lumber litigation and before a NAFTA 2022 panel on best practices in dispute settlement.