Commentators have heralded the widespread agreement among states to permit the monitoring and enforcement of trade rules through third-party dispute settlement as a major milestone not just in the development of international trade law but in the development of international law more generally. The creation of multilateral rules on trade was itself an achievement but the compliance methodology that sought to ensure that states would uphold their commitments was an even greater triumph for a rule-based international system. In light of this accomplishment by governments to agree to such terms, much of the literature of the 1990s praised the institutionalization of trade law with these mechanisms incorporated and subsequent developments in international trade dispute settlement design (Jackson 1997; Schott 1994; Steger and Hainsworth 1998; Thomas and Meyer 1997). At the forefront of these developments was the dispute settlement mechanism of the World Trade Organization (WTO). Scholars viewed the WTO as a model not only in the substance of its foundational agreements, but also in its institutions with committees for dialogue among members and a dispute settlement mechanism premised on democratic norms and the rule of law (Alford 2013; Hamilton and Rochwerger 2005; Katz 2016; Manak 2019; Sarooshi 2014).