Where are the LDC and Small Developing State Complainants in the WTO DSB?

One dispute. In the entire history of the World Trade Organization’s Dispute Settlement Body, the least developed countries have initiated exactly one, and Prof Md. Rizwanul Islam and I built this article around it.

India - Anti-Dumping Measure on Batteries from Bangladesh is examined at three stages: deciding to bring the claim, conducting it, and living with what followed. Obstacles cluster at each. Specialist legal capacity is scarce and expensive. Institutional memory does not accumulate where a state litigates once in twenty-five years. And retaliation is asymmetric, so a favourable ruling is difficult to enforce for a state whose market a larger partner can afford to lose, which alters the value of winning before a claim is ever filed.

The article then sets out pragmatic reforms and practical measures that would lower the barrier and make participation worth attempting.

What the case study exposes is structural. A dispute mechanism formally open to every member is used almost exclusively by members able to bear its costs, and formal equality of access conceals that completely.