Although the Appellate Body''s remarks were made in the context of a reference to a broad product grouping in the complaining party''s request for establishment, we can see no basis for not adopting a similar approach when the request for establishment refers to a broad industry sector, such as the ‘civil aircraft industry’. If a complaining party believes that a measure affects a broad industry sector, in our view that complaining party should be entitled to challenge that measure insofar as it affects the totality of the industry concerned, without having to spell out the individual components of that industry, and without running afoul of Article 6.2 of the DSU.”
In short, whether the claims are sufficiently precise to “identify the specific measure at issue” under Art. 6.2 of the DSU depends upon whether they satisfy the object and purposes of the requirement of that provision, i.e., whether the respondent and potential third parties are put on sufficient notice as to the parameters of the case it is defending. For this reason, Art. 6.2 should be interpreted to require any “measure” challenged to be specified in the panel request or to be subsidiary or closely related to the specified “measures”. Also, one of the purposes of Art. 6.2 is to ensure clarity of panels'' terms of reference. Accordingly, claims based on provisions of GATT or other WTO agreements not mentioned in the panel request should be found to be outside the terms of reference of the panel concerned.”
IVProvision of “a brief summary of the legal basis of the complaint”
In its fourth requirement, Art. 6.2 demands only a summary - and it may be a brief one - of the legal basis of the complaint; but the summary must, in any event, be one that is “sufficient to present the problem clearly”. It is not enough, in other words, that “the legal basis of the complaint” is summarily identified; the identification must “present the problem clearly”.
In EC-Bananas, with respect to whether the panel request provides, as required, a “brief summary of the legal basis of the complaint sufficient to present the problem clearly”, the Appellate Body rules pertinently that, “we agree with the Panel''s conclusion that ‘the request is sufficiently specific to comply with the minimum standards established by the terms of Article 6.2 of the DSU’. We accept the Panel''s view that it was sufficient for the Complaining Parties to list the provisions of the specific agreements alleged to have been violated without setting out detailed arguments as to which specific aspects of the measures at issue relate to which specific provisions of those agreements.” 15 However, as noted by the Appellate Body, this is not a litmus test for determining the sufficiency of the statement of the legal basis of the complaint. The Appellate Body in Korea-Dairy Products(DS98)rules in pertinent part:16
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