This is from last week's Peru - Agricultural Products WTO panel report:
7.525. Peru affirms that, if the Panel finds that the PRS [Price Range System] is inconsistent with its obligations under the WTO agreements, there would be an inconsistency between the FTA (which allows Peru to maintain the PRS) and the WTO agreements (which prohibit the PRS). In the light of such inconsistency, Peru states that it should be understood that, the FTA has modified, as between the parties, those provisions of the WTO agreements which prohibit Peru from maintaining its PRS. Peru therefore claims that Guatemala waived the rights which it might have had under the WTO Agreement in relation to the PRS.
7.526. Peru's argument that the relevant clauses in the FTA – i.e. paragraph 9 of Annex 2.3 and Article 1.3 – modified certain obligations between the parties under the WTO agreements presupposes that those provisions in the FTA are legally binding on Guatemala and Peru. For this to be the case, the FTA would have had to enter into force. It is, however, an undisputed fact that the FTA has not yet entered into force.
7.527. As discussed above, a treaty signed by the parties but which has not yet entered into force has only limited legal effects. Inasmuch as the FTA has not entered into force, its relevant provisions are not currently legally binding on the parties.
7.528. In the light of this fact, it is not necessary for this Panel to express an opinion on whether the parties may, through the FTA, modify between themselves their rights and obligations under the covered agreements; or whether there is a conflict of rules between the FTA and the covered agreements and the consequences such a conflict would have.
Another example of international law issues that will have to be decided some day, but not today. But see paras. 7.24-96 for some very interesting discussion of these issues. Here's a key quote:
7.92 ... to make a determination as to what is the object and purpose of the FTA would be to go beyond the terms of reference entrusted to this Panel by the DSB.196
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196 See Appellate Body Report, Mexico – Taxes on Soft Drinks, paras. 56 and 78.
