With the benefit of hindsight, much scholarship across political science, law, and economics has told the story of the international trade regime as if it had been pulled all along by a definite aim. By contrast, this article emphasizes the contingent aspects of the trade regime's development, looking especially to its dispute settlement mechanism. The very creation of the Appellate Body had by no means a certain outcome, and once created, the tribunal's evolution was largely unanticipated by states. An often-overlooked actor played a key role in that development: the WTO Secretariat. Drawing on recent findings, this article lays out the full extent of the Secretariat's role in dispute settlement, which remains largely hidden from view, and deliberately so. From appointing adjudicators and managing their remuneration, to providing them with legal arguments and drafting final rulings, the Secretariat of the WTO looms larger than in any comparable tribunal. Making its influence more transparent, I argue, would go a long way to returning the system to the shape it was designed to have at its outset.

事后看来，许多政治学、法律和经济学领域的学者都在讲述国际贸易体制的故事，就好像它一直被一个明确的目标所推动。相比之下，本文强调贸易体制发展的偶然因素，特别关注其争端解决机制。上诉机构的成立本身并没有一定的结果，而且一旦成立，法庭的演变在很大程度上是各州始料未及的。一个经常被忽视的角色在这一发展中发挥了关键作用：世贸组织秘书处。根据最近的调查结果，本文阐述了秘书处在解决争端中的全部作用，而这在很大程度上仍然是隐蔽的，而且是故意的。从任命审裁员和管理他们的薪酬，为了向他们提供法律论据和起草最终裁决，世贸组织秘书处的规模比任何类似的法庭都要大。我认为，让其影响更加透明，将大大有助于使系统恢复到最初设计的形状。