Suchergebnisse

In October 2014, the European Union requested consultations with Russia under the WTO's dispute settlement system regarding Russia's tariff treatment of various agricultural and manufacturing products. Although most of the measures challenged by the EU were individual tariff lines, the final measure in its complaint was a "more general measure" referred to as the systematic duty variation. A WTO dispute panel eventually ruled that the EU failed to establish the systematic nature of the duty treatment afforded by Russia to certain products. In this paper, we explore the dispute panel's ruling, as well as how claims of systematic non-compliance are treated in other legal settings. We conclude by exploring whether future WTO panels should instead consider statistical evidence of systematic treatment to promote compliance.

The paper examines in a comparative manner the approaches taken towards WTO law by the American and European legal orders in order to explore the core reason behind the European approach. The European approach to WTO appears unique compared with its general approach towards international law, in particular for international agreements concluded by the Community. The paper argues that the selective and pragmatic American approach, both legislative and judicial, towards WTO law have strongly influenced the judiciary on the other side of Atlantic to configure a selective and pragmatic judicial approach as well.

The leaked TTIP documents reveal that the EU and US are discussing the introduction of a detailed set of procedural requirements for the adoption of regulatory measures. Default provisions are set forth in the chapter on regulatory cooperation, applicable to goods and services. More specific provisions are being negotiated in the chapters on technical barriers to trade and on sanitary and phytosanitary measures. If they conflict with the regulatory cooperation chapter, they prevail.This article analyses the regulatory cooperation chapter insofar as it pertains to trade in goods but to the exclusion of SPS matters and anything provided in the TBT chapter itself. The questions this article examines are to what extent the TTIP proposals expand upon the obligations the two parties have already taken on under WTO law and to what extent the resulting regulatory coordination is consistent withWTO law. It will be shown that the US proposals on procedure may constrain substantive regulatory discretion beyond what applies under the GATT and TBT Agreement of the WTO. It will alsobe shown that the needs to conduct trade impact assessments and a detailed explanation of the necessity of measures anticipate a legal challenge to necessity and will provide information of much use to complainants in meeting their burden of proof.