¹ Frieder’s surname was in fact Rössler, but he may have chosen a transliterated spelling without German Umlaut early in his international career, notably all publications appeared under the surname Roessler. Consistency with Frieder’s scholarship will prevail here over legal correctness.

² See the other accounts in this volume, notably by Ernst-Ulrich Petersmann, Werner Zdouc, and Petros Mavroidis.

³ One story is Frieder’s question about a legal affairs office that generated laughter in a GATT Secretariat staff assembly and a senior colleague telling him: ‘here at the GATT, we do not believe in law, we believe in pragmatism’. The other version is that lawyers were considered useful for the liability for a broken photocopier, but not for settling trade disputes. See Frieder Roessler, Interview recorded on 28 June 2012, www.wto.org/video/2012_06_28_lad_roessler.mp4; F. Roessler (2015) ‘The Role of Law in International Trade Relations and the Establishment of the Legal Affairs Division of the GATT’, in G. Marceau (ed.), A History of Law and Lawyers in the GATT/WTO, The Development of the Rule of Law in the Multilateral Trading System. WTO/Cambridge University Press, 161, 161; F. Roessler (2003) ‘Beyond the Ostensible – A Tribute to Professor Robert Hudec’s Insights on the Determination of the Likeness of Products Under the National Treatment Provisions of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade’, Journal of World Trade 37, 771, 771.

⁴ Frieder considered his transfer to the newly created Office of Legal Affairs of the GATT Secretariat as the moment at which his ‘real career at the GATT had begun’; F. Roessler, Interview recorded on 28 June 2012, www.wto.org/video/2012_06_28_lad_roessler.mp4.

⁵ Frieder pointed out that the European Economic Community, in existence from 1958, had not been able to defend its interests when the GATT was drafted and that it had no pre-1948 legislation that could benefit from the ‘grandfathering clause’ of Paragraph 1(b) of the Protocol of Provisional Application. It also did not benefit from a waiver such as that granted to the United States in 1955. Roessler, ‘The Role of Law in International Trade Relations’, supra n. 3, 164.

⁶ This divergence was well described by Åke Lindén at the June 2012 conference on the 30th anniversary of the Legal Affairs Division (www.wto.org/english/tratop_e/dispu_e/lad30bday_e.htm). See also Å. Lindén (2015) ‘The First Years of the GATT Legal Service’, in G. Marceau (ed.), A History of Law and Lawyers in the GATT/WTO. WTO/Cambridge University Press, 135, 137–138. https://www-cambridge-org.demo.remotlog.com/core/books/history-of-law-and-lawyers-in-the-gattwto/AE5C13F457221B489FCEB709D8564BE8.

⁷ Then ensued a controversy over who should head the new Office of Legal Affairs. The United States proposed university professors and trade law experts (American or French), whereas the European Economic Community first favoured a non-lawyer and insisted (successfully) on a practitioner from within the GATT Secretariat. See Lindén, supra n. 6.

⁸ This was significantly motivated by an interest in containing unilateralism of the United States under section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974, an interest shared also by others, notably Japan. See, for a detailed explanation of the policy shift by the European Economic Community, described also as ‘flight forward’, T. Christoforou (2004) ‘The World Trade Organization, Its Dispute Settlement System and the European Union: A Preliminary Assessment of Nearly Ten Years of Application’, in La Documentation française (ed.), L’intégration européenne au XXIe siècle: en hommage à Jacques Bourrinet. Documentation française, 257–278. https://books.google.lu/books/about/L_int%C3%A9gration_europ%C3%A9enne_au_XXIe_si%C3%A8c.html?id=1ZyHAAAAMAAJ&redir_esc=y; and P.J. Kuijper (1995) ‘The New WTO Dispute Settlement System: The Impact of the Community’, in J. Bourgeois et al. (eds.), The Uruguay Round – A European Lawyers’ Perspective. P.I.E-Peter Lang S.A., Éditions Scientifiques Internationales, 87, 92. https://www.peterlang.com/document/1087751; see also Roessler, ‘The Role of Law in International Trade Relations’, supra n. 3, 172.

⁹ See G. Marceau and D.A. Baker (2015) ‘A Short History of the Rules Division’, in G. Marceau (ed.), A History of Law and Lawyers in the GATT/WTO. WTO/Cambridge University Press, supra note 3, 112, 121–122; Roessler, ‘The Role of Law in International Trade Relations’, supra n. 3, 165; A. Porges, ‘The Legal Affairs Division and Law in the GATT and the Uruguay Round’, in G. Marceau (ed.), supra note 3, 223, 226, 232.

¹⁰ M. Koulen, https://ielp.worldtradelaw.net/2024/09/guest-post-a-tribute-to-frieder-roessler-from-ernst-ulrich-petersmann.html. Mark Koulen also used fitting words when he described ‘the main lesson I learned from working with Frieder: the need to be clear, precise and disciplined in the use of basic legal concepts’.

¹¹ P. Luyten (2015) ‘We Were Young Together: At the GATT, 1956–58’, in Gabrielle Marceau (ed.), A History of Law and Lawyers in the GATT/WTO, supra note 3, 79–84.

¹² And that thorough legal analysis amounts to gap-filling. But see Paul Luyten, supra n. 11.

¹³ Frieder Roessler, Interview recorded on 28 June 2012, https://www.wto.org/video/2012_06_28_lad_roessler.mp4.

¹⁴ It did not deliver the quality and consistency which the GATT contracting parties wanted. The 1981 GATT panel report in Spain – Soyabean Oil (L/5142, 17 June 1981, unadopted) is widely cited as a qualitative low point which definitively confirmed the need to improve the legal quality. See Roessler, supra n. 5, 165, Porges, supra n. 9, 225–226.

¹⁵ This was what disputing parties wanted to know, whereas the prior approach gave priority to finding a solution which both parties could accept, as they had indicated during the process.

¹⁶ Amelia Porges makes this important point. Supra n. 9, 226 and 227.

¹⁷ www.wto.org/english/tratop_e/dispu_e/lad30bday_e.htm.

¹⁸ G. Marceau (ed.) (2015), A History of Law and Lawyers in the GATT/WTO, supra note 3.

¹⁹ F. Roessler (2000) ‘The Institutional Balance between the Judicial and the Political Organs of the WTO’, paper presented at the Harvard Conference 'Efficiency, Equity and Legitimacy: The Multilateral Trading System at the Millennium', 1–2 June 2000, www.ksg.harvard.edu/cbg/trade/roessler.htm (accessed on 20 November 2000); the contribution remains retrievable at https://web.archive.org/web/20020109182219/www.ksg.harvard.edu/cbg/trade/roessler.htm; Frieder’s subsequent publication is: ‘Are the Judicial Organs of the World Trade Organization Overburdened?’, in R. Porter et al. (eds.) (2001), Efficiency, Equity, Legitimacy, The Multilateral Trading System at the Millennium. Brookings Institution Press, 308–328. https://www.brookings.edu/books/efficiency-equity-and-legitimacy/; the preceding: ‘The Institutional Balance between the Judicial and the Political Organs of the WTO’, in M. Bronckers and R. Quick (eds) (2000), New Directions in International Economic Law: Essays in Honour of John H. Jackson. Kluwer Law International, 325–345. https://law-store.wolterskluwer.com/s/product/new-directions-in-international-economic-law-essays/01t0f00000J3ayDAAR.

²⁰ W. Zdouc enters into this subject slightly more deeply in his contribution in this volume.

²¹ Panel Report, United States – Measures Affecting Alcoholic and Malt Beverages, adopted 19 June 1992, BISD 39S/206.

²² Panel Report, United States – Taxes on Automobiles, DS31/R, 11 October 1994, unadopted.

²³ Appellate Body Report, Japan – Taxes on Alcoholic Beverages II, WT/DS8/AB/R, WT/DS10/AB/R, WT/DS11/AB/R, adopted 1 November 1996, 18–19.

²⁴ Appellate Body Report, EC – Regime for the Importation, Sale and Distribution of Bananas, WT/DS27/AB/R, adopted 25 September 1997, para. 241.

²⁵ F. Roessler (2007) ‘The Responsibilities of a WTO Member Found to Have Violated WTO Law’, in Y. Taniguchi et al. (eds.), The WTO in the Twenty-First Century: Dispute Settlement, Negotiations, and Regionalism in Asia. Cambridge University Press, 141–147. https://www-cambridge-org.demo.remotlog.com/core/books/wto-in-the-twentyfirst-century/508B3C87190CB0F40E3BB138722E5BD9.

²⁶ GATT Panel Report, US – Anti-Dumping Duties on Steel Hollow Products from Sweden, ADP/47, 20 August 1990, unadopted, para. 5.24; GATT Panel Report, US – Anti-Dumping Duties on Gray Portland Cement from Mexico, ADP/82, 7 September 1992, unadopted, para. 6.2.

²⁷ Other contentious issues of the same period are more prominent in the following historic account on activities by the United States, including specifically in the months before July 1992, with references to the GATT ‘legal office’: WorldTradeLaw.net, ‘The US Push for a More Deferential Legal Standard of Review for AD/CVD During the Uruguay Round’, January 2024, www.worldtradelaw.net/dsc/essays/USTR-UR-Discussions-Legal-SOR-AD-CVD-II.pdf, 6–9.

²⁸ For more details, Marceau and Baker, supra n. 9, 125–126; Roessler, ‘The Role of Law in International Trade Relations’, supra n. 3, 168–169.

²⁹ J.H. Jackson (1969) World Trade and the Law of the GATT. The Bobbs-Merrill Company, 499.

³⁰ F. Roessler (1975) ‘GATT and Access to Supplies’, Journal of World Trade 9, 25, 35.

³¹ See L. Ehring and G. F. Chianale (2011) ‘Export Restrictions in the Field of Energy’, in Yulia Selivanova (ed.), Regulation of Energy in International Trade Law: WTO, NAFTA and Energy Charter. Kluwer Law International, 109–147. https://law-store.wolterskluwer.com/s/product/regulation-of-energy-in-international-trade-law/01t0f00000J3aWNAAZ.

³² See the resulting articulation of violation claims in the Request for Consultations by the European Union, Russia – Export Restrictions on Wood, WT/DS608/1/Rev.1, 23 February 2022.

³³ S. Charnovitz (2024) in ACWL (ed.), In Memoriam Dr Frieder Roessler, 1939–2024.

³⁴ F. Roessler (1997) ‘The Concept of Nullification and Impairment in the Legal System of the World Trade Organization’, in Ernst-Ulrich Petersmann (ed.), International Trade Law and the GATT/WTO Dispute Settlement System. Kluwer Law International, 125–142. https://law-store.wolterskluwer.com/s/product/international-trade-law-the-gatttwo-dispute-settlement-system/01t0f00000J3attAAB.

³⁵ WTO (2004) A Handbook on the WTO Dispute Settlement System. WTO/Cambridge University Press, 28–37. This edition of the Handbook is also published online; the section in question starts at www.wto.org/english/tratop_e/dispu_e/disp_settlement_cbt_e/c4s1p1_e.htm.

³⁶ L. Ehring, ‘The legal bases for adjudication in the World Trade Organization, Requiem for Frieder Roessler’, forthcoming.

³⁷ Idem.