By Robert McDougall ( December 11, 2017, 4:32 PM EST) -- The World Trade Organization is in Buenos Aires this week for its biennial Ministerial Conference with increasingly diminished expectations for updating international trade rules. One subject not on the formal agenda, but likely to be hotly debated, is the ongoing U.S. block on the appointment of new members to the WTO Appellate Body — the tribunal with the final word in resolving trade disputes between WTO members. A third seat on the seven-member body will become vacant by the time trade ministers leave Argentina, and if the nine-month-old impasse is not resolved soon, the entire dispute settlement system will become increasingly dysfunctional at a time of renewed trade tension....