Despite the session’s title, the panel barely touched upon the use of the Trade Policy Review Mechanism as an instrument to address the human rights effects of trade policies. Only one speaker mentioned that the TPR mechanism seems the obvious and easiest starting point to do so. Instead, the debate focused almost exclusively on the WTO’s legal instruments and whether and how these can be used to address human rights violations.

Some speakers believed that the Dispute Settlement Understanding (DSU) is the WTO’s port of entry for human rights matters, but warned that this has not been sufficiently analysed in terms of effects or legal mandate. WTO members should first decide what they want and subsequently change the current rulebook for panels and the Appellate Body to extend their interpretative scope, even though — as we were reminded — in practice this already happens. As one panel member rightfully remarked, such a decision will be difficult given that members do not raise human rights issues in the trade arena nor use human rights violations as defence in WTO cases. A participant even wondered if both bodies have the competence and knowledge to rule on human rights related matters. Unfortunately but may be unsurprisingly, WTO members seemed absent in the debate or panel, leaving the audience with more questions than answers.