The rules-based international trading order is likely to suffer serious damage this week as the US carries out a longstanding threat to cripple the World Trade Organization system for dispute settlement.

The WTO’s appellate body (AB), which adjudicates on contested rulings over disputes between member countries, will become unable to function when Washington exercises a veto and blocks new judges from being appointed to replace two whose terms of office expire.

Trade officials say a meeting in Geneva this week of WTO ambassadors from the organisation’s 164 member countries will almost certainly be unable to convince the US to relax its hard line. Robert Lighthizer, the US trade representative — who frequently tangled with the WTO in his former career as a lawyer for the US steel industry — has repeatedly said the body oversteps its brief and creates law rather than interprets WTO agreements.