According to Lamy, 75 percent of the world’s economies believe that using the WTO multilateral platform for settling trade disputes is instrumental as it allows them to use a rules-based (rather than might-based) approach.

“Because that is what’s best compared to, for instance, unilateral or bilateral mechanisms,” Lamy said in a discussion hosted by the Jakarta-based Centre for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS).

In the two years that the WTO appellate body, which has the final say in upholding, modifying or reversing WTO rulings, has existed, the US has made consistent moves to discredit its decisions and limit its influence. US officials have said the court has gone beyond its remit.

On Tuesday, two of the court’s three appellate judges retired, leaving 13 appeals suspended as the process needs a minimum of three judges to function. There are no replacements in sight because the US has and will continue to block the appointment of new judges, Reuters reports. The fate of the appeals court seemed sealed after the US said on Monday that it would not back a proposal to allow the body to continue operating. The WTO chief has vowed to find a solution.

Lamy questioned whether Washington’s move was a bargaining strategy or an attempt to get rid of the WTO entirely because the US saw it as a “disaster” for the country, especially when dealing with the country’s trade dispute with Beijing.

“It is unclear whether it is just a tactic to threaten to quit or a series of attempts to destroy [the WTO].”

He added that it is a “basic ideological problem” for every country to choose the best trade dispute mechanism to benefit their economy. “The US should not dictate [what other countries decide to do].”

Indonesia — with several cases unsettled at the WTO including a dispute about alleged “discrimination” in the European Union policy on palm oil and a fresh EU complaint against Indonesia’s nickel ore export ban — continues to have confidence in the multilateral institution’s ability to settle trade disputes.

“We still have an interest in the WTO. Otherwise, it will be difficult for us to fight against other powers,” CSIS leading economist Mari Elka Pangestu told The Jakarta Post on Tuesday.

Mari, trade minister under former president Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, said the disputes were better settled under WTO mechanisms so that Indonesia could use a rules-based system to explain why the government decided to follow certain trade policies.

“We need to use rules-based [mechanisms] to fight unfair trade from any country — especially those with more power, such as the EU or the US.”

The Foreign Ministry's director general for multilateral cooperation, Febrian Ruddyard, said Indonesia valued the WTO as the most effective multilateral trade body and that there was no better alternative system to accommodate such interests.

“Indonesia, along with other member states, will always be a part of the solution to sustain the WTO’s dispute settlement system.”

Indonesia called on the WTO to find a solution regarding its appeals court as soon as possible. Febrian said, "This is important to maintain the rights of the member states to make an appeal in a trade dispute."

Any hindrance to the dispute settlement system, Febrian added, was a challenge to the sustainability of the multilateral trade system itself.

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