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Remarks by Federico Ortino

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 March 2019

Federico Ortino*
Affiliation:
King's College London.

Extract

When it comes to trade law, it is true that there appear to be certain signs that we are moving back to non-discrimination and away from deeper forms of integration. However, this is possibly (and hopefully) only a limited and temporary shift. The strongest evidence of such a shift regards the apparent interpretation by the WTO Appellate Body (AB) of the key provisions in the TBT Agreement in such a way as to give prevalence to the national treatment standard in Article 2.1 over the necessity requirements in Article 2.2. For example, in US – Tuna II (Mexico) the AB found the U.S. dolphin-safe regulations under review inconsistent with Article 2.1, while also reversing the panel finding that the U.S. dolphin-safe regulations were inconsistent with Article 2.2. Such a result is surprising if one considers the general agreement among commentators that the disciplines embodied in the TBT Agreement (as well as in the SPS Agreement) went beyond the non-discrimination obligation of the GATT.

Type
The Once and Future Law of Non-Discrimination: Revisiting Most Favored Nation and National Treatment
Copyright
Copyright © by The American Society of International Law 2019 

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References

1 See, e.g., Robert Howse, The New Calvo Doctrine of the Trump Administration: Renegotiating the Investment Chapter of NAFTA, Int'l Econ. L. & Pol'y Blog (July 7, 2017), available at http://worldtradelaw.typepad.com/ielpblog/2017/07/the-new-calvo-doctrine-of-the-trump-administration-renegotiating-the-investment-chapter-of-nafta.html