On July 31, the participants of the WTO "Multi-party Interim Appeal Arbitration Arrangement" (MPIA), including China and the European Union, reached an agreement on the list of arbitrators and jointly notified the WTO dispute settlement body, thus a pool of 10 arbitrators is successfully formed. The Multi-party Interim Appeal Arbitration Arrangement follows the arbitration procedure under Article 25 of the Understanding on Rules and Procedures Governing the Settlement of Disputes to handle the cases appealed by participants as long as the Appellate Body is not fully functional.

Professor Yang Guohua nominated by China won the support of participants and was selected as a member of the pool. Other arbitrators are from Brazil, Canada, Chile, Colombia, European Union, Mexico, New Zealand, Singapore and Switzerland. In the future, members of the pool will be responsible for hearing the appeals in WTO dispute cases between the participants. The establishment of the pool of arbitrators is a necessary step to fully implement the Multi-party Interim Appeal Arbitration Arrangement, which is of great significance for maintaining the effective operation of the dispute settlement mechanism and safeguarding the multilateral trading system based on rules.