Abstract
How adjudicators write their decisions can be enormously important in achieving credibility and acceptance for a tribunal’s decisions. International tribunals, such as the WTO panels and Appellate Body, face greater difficulties than domestic tribunals in developing an individual style. The DSU influences the judicial style of the AB, but does not mandate a particular stylistic approach. The AB’s approach to interpretation under Article 31 of the VCLT and its reliance on the dictionary in its interpretation seems to have contributed to the development of a formalistic writing style and, over time, longer and more complex reports. In addition, the AB has generally eschewed any rhetorical or dramatic flourishes in its writing. The chapter also discusses various factors affecting the style of the AB, includes the textualist approach of the VCLT, differences in spoken languages, differences in legal tradition, the requirement of collegiality, the importance of candour, and the personalities of the adjudicators. Ultimately, the style of a tribunal like the AB may depend mostly on the individual styles of its members.
The views expressed in this chapter, as well as all errors and omissions, are entirely the responsibility of the author and should not be attributed to the ACWL or its Members. I should also note that I am very much aware that I write from the perspective of a legal practitioner with longstanding experience as a litigator but only limited experience as an adjudicator. With this in mind, I have tried not to underestimate unfairly the difficulties faced by adjudicators, especially in an international context, in communicating their decisions to the world.
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Notes
- 1.
Weisberg (2018, p. 349).
- 2.
For ease of reference, in this chapter I use the term “judge” to refer interchangeably to both judges in domestic legal systems and panellists and Appellate Body members in the WTO system.
- 3.
While domestic legal systems increasingly and properly strive for diversity among the judiciary within the domestic legal system, the judiciary of each country nevertheless presents to the world as a homogenous whole.
- 4.
It could also be argued, although perhaps less convincingly, that panels also influence the style of the Appellate Body, because the panel gets to write the first version of the reports that will ultimately decide the dispute. As the saying goes, whoever writes the first draft controls the document….
- 5.
Wald (1995a). As will be seen, in preparing this section of the chapter, I enjoyed reviewing, and now rely heavily on, the writings of two prominent American judges, Judge Wald and Richard A. Posner, that have written extensively on how judges write. In a series of articles in the 1990 s, they sparred, directly and indirectly, on the question. In “Judges’ Writing Styles (And Do They Matter?)”, Judge Posner expounded his theories of style before criticizing a decision of Judge Wald’s in a case involving the due process rights of criminal defendants (Posner 1995). In a written response, Judge Wald referred to Posner’s general discussion of style as Judge Wald referred to this portion of Judge Posner’s article as “fifteen pages of intermittently scholarly, esoteric and impenetrable analysis of judicial style” (Wald 1995b).
- 6.
Wald (1995a), supra note 6, at p. 1372.
- 7.
Id.
- 8.
Id.
- 9.
Id.
- 10.
Id.
- 11.
Posner, supra note 6, at p. 1448.
- 12.
Orwell (2002, pp. 965–966).
- 13.
Posner, supra note 6, at p. 1422.
- 14.
Id.
- 15.
Id., at p. 1423.
- 16.
Id., at p. 1429.
- 17.
Id., at p. 1430.
- 18.
Id., at pp. 1430–1431.
- 19.
Id., at pp. 1431–1432.
- 20.
Wald (1995a), supra note 6, at p. 1417.
- 21.
Posner, supra note 6, at pp. 1432–1433.
- 22.
Id., at p. 1447.
- 23.
Id., at pp. 1435–1436.
- 24.
Sedley (1999).
- 25.
Pauwelyn (2016, pp. 1123–1124).
- 26.
Understanding on Rules and Procedures Governing the Settlement of Disputes art. 11, 15 Apr 1994, Marrakesh Agreement Establishing the World Trade Organization, Annex 2, 1869, U.N.T.S. 401 [DSU] provides that:
[A] panel should make an objective assessment of the matter before it, including an objective assessment of the facts of the case and the applicability of and conformity with the relevant covered agreements, and make such other findings as will assist the DSB in making the recommendations or in giving the rulings provided for in the covered agreements.
The Appellate Body hears appeals as to whether a panel’s assessment of the facts in a case was not objective and therefore not consistent with Article 11.
- 27.
Ehlermann (2002, p. 638).
- 28.
Id.
- 29.
Id.
- 30.
Ganesan (2015, p. 535). See also Ehlermann, supra note 29, at p. 638:
[T]he Appellate Body has certainly attached the greatest weight to the first [term mentioned in Article 31 of the VCLT], i.e., “the ordinary meaning of the terms of the treaty.” This is easily illustrated by the frequent references in Appellate Body reports to dictionaries, in particular to the Shorter Oxford Dictionary, which, in the words of certain critical observers, has become “one of the covered agreements”.
- 31.
Unterhalter (2015, p. 467).
- 32.
Abi-Saab (2006, pp. 453, 461).
- 33.
Davey (2015, pp. 353, 370).
- 34.
Jordan v. De George, 341 U.S. 223, 234 (1951) (Jackson, J., dissenting) (in a case involving the meaning of the phrase “moral turpitude”).
- 35.
Unterhalter, supra note 32, at p. 474.
- 36.
Ganesan, supra note 31, at p. 536.
- 37.
Abi-Saab, supra note 33, at p. 462. Cf. Learned Hand, Cabell v. Markham, 148 F.2d 737, 739 (2d Cir. 1945), aff’d, 326 U.S. 404 (1945) (“It is one of the surest indexes [sic] of a mature and developed jurisprudence not to make a fortress out of the dictionary; but to remember that statutes always have some purpose or object to accomplish, whose systematic and imaginative discovery is the surest guide to their meaning”).
- 38.
Posner, supra note 6, at p. 1439.
- 39.
Wald (1995a), supra note 6, at p. 1379.
- 40.
Appellate Body Report, EC—Hormones, para 187 (emphasis added).
- 41.
Sedley, supra note 25. Lord Denning began his decision in Hinz v. Berry [1970] 2 QB 40, with these sentences: “It happened on April 19, 1964. It was bluebell time in Kent”.
- 42.
Romano et al. (2013, p. 17).
- 43.
Id.
- 44.
Id.
- 45.
Abi-Saab, supra note 33, at p. 454.
- 46.
Id., at p. 456.
- 47.
For a discussion of how interpretation is affected by language issues, see Condon (2010).
- 48.
In practice, almost all Appellate Body proceedings have taken place in English and the reports are initially drafted in English.
- 49.
Baptista (2015, pp. 559, 567).
- 50.
Id., at p. 568.
- 51.
See Posner, supra note 6, pp. 1425, 1432 (Posner considers that decisions drafted by law clerks come to reflect the “pure” style).
- 52.
In addition to the United States, other WTO Members with a common law legal tradition such as Australia, Canada, India, and New Zealand are also frequent disputants (as EU member States, neither the United Kingdom (for the time being) nor the Republic of Ireland participates separately in WTO disputes). Thus, “[m]uch of what is generally held to bear an American legal footprint, under closer scrutiny really bears the marks of common law” (Romano 2003, pp. 89, 92).
- 53.
Lasser (2015) (All translations are mine. The original reads: “l’opinion judiciaire américaine peut facilement ressembler à une déclaration désorganisée et indisciplinée de caprice judiciaire, dont les auteurs ne suivent aucune loi, sauf celle de leur propre fabrication”).
- 54.
Id. (“La France, c’est le pays du formalisme et de l’exégèse, où les magistrats sont censés devoir appliquer de manière mécanique les commandements codifiés du législateur … la forme même de l’arrêt judiciaire, et surtout l’arrêt de cassation, semble nier tout pouvoir normatif, voire tout pouvoir interprétatif, au juge”).
- 55.
Among the ironies is that the United States, with its common law tradition, is taking a narrower view of the precedential value of prior reports, while the European Union, made up mostly of civil law jurisdictions, places more importance on the role of prior reports in securing the predictability of the system.
- 56.
Romano et al., supra note 43, at p. 92.
- 57.
Brunet et al. (2015). Again, all translations are mine. The original reads:
Le «style» des décisions judiciaires recouvre, d’une part, l’usage du langage et, d’autre part, l’usage des sources ou des références susceptibles de venir au soutien de la motivation des juges. Le premier élément permet d’observer une grande différence entre les juges de common law—qui intervient à titre individuel et semblent ne jamais ou très rarement employer un langage technique—et ceux du civil law qui restent dans une réserve quasi absolue et paraissent opposer à leurs lecteurs un jargon incompréhensible).
- 58.
Id. (“Ainsi, prendre en compte cette double dimension du style permet de se libérer de tout conceptualisme et de saisir l’identité des problèmes qui se posent aux juges quel que soit le système dans lequel ils évoluent”).
- 59.
Id.
[S]i le style que l’on adopte dépend du destinataire à qui on s’adresse, les juges de common law et ceux de civil law semblent ne pas avoir le même interlocuteur. Les premiers s’efforcent de donner une dimension concrète à leur décision, tandis que les seconds demeurent dans une abstraction telle que chaque problème concret semble s’inscrire dans un système conceptuel.
- 60.
Id., p. 469.
Il ne faudrait cependant pas croire que l’opposition de style entre common law et civil law est figée dans l’histoire ne même qu’elle correspond à des traits nationaux inscrits dans la longue durée… La variété des styles peut elle-même se retrouver au sein d’une juridiction qui, par sa création récente et l’hétérogénéité de ses membres, n’est pas encore parvenue à fixer un style propre.
- 61.
Baptista, supra note 50, at p. 562. John Lockhart, from Australia, was one of the few Appellate Body members with prior judicial experience (Florentino “Toy” Feliciano (1995–2001), from the Philippines, was another). He served from 2001 to 2006, sadly dying before the completion of his second term.
- 62.
Ganesan, supra note 31, at p. 528.
- 63.
Id., at p. 530.
- 64.
Lacarte-Muró (2015, pp. 476, 479).
- 65.
Posner, supra note 6, at p. 1377.
- 66.
US Federal Judicial Center (1991).
- 67.
Prott (1970, p. 86).
- 68.
Id., at pp. 18–19.
- 69.
This applies also to how higher tribunals treat lower tribunals: “An appellate opinion need not attack a trial court’s wisdom, judgment, or even its attitude in order to reverse its decision. And it should avoid unnecessary criticism, such as for having failed to consider authority or resting on improper motives”. Id., at p. 19.
- 70.
For a more detailed discussion of candour in judicial decisions, see Fallon (2017).
- 71.
Ehlermann (2003, p. 475).
- 72.
For a discussion of the use of obiter dicta in WTO dispute settlement, see Gao (2018).
- 73.
Wald (1995a), supra note 6, at p. 1410.
- 74.
Id., at p. 1415.
- 75.
Yeats (1917).
- 76.
Wald (1995a), supra note 6, at p. 1415.
- 77.
Posner, supra note 6, at p. 1436.
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Meagher, N. (2020). The Judicial Style of the Appellate Body. In: Lo, Cf., Nakagawa, J., Chen, Tf. (eds) The Appellate Body of the WTO and Its Reform. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-0255-2_9
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